CCPR/C/112/D/2083/2011
1.2
On 12 August 2011, the Committee, through its Special Rapporteur on new
communications and interim measures, decided to grant the protection measures requested
by the author and asked the State party to refrain from invoking domestic legislation, and
specifically Ordinance No. 06-01 of 27 February 2006 implementing the Charter for Peace
and National Reconciliation, against the author or his family on the grounds of the present
communication. On 26 October 2011, the Committee, through its Special Rapporteur on
new communications and interim measures, decided not to examine the admissibility of the
communication separately from the merits.
The facts as submitted by the author
2.1
At 7 a.m. on 12 August 1994, Yahia Kroumi, the author’s son, was arrested at his
home in Constantine by a group of uniformed soldiers and plain clothes military security
personnel who were conducting a vast search operation following the murder of two
soldiers in the region of Constantine. The members of the security forces entered all the
homes in the district in which Yahia Kroumi lived and ordered all the men to leave their
homes with their hands raised. Those arrested were brought together outside and some of
them, including Yahia Kroumi, were taken by lorry to an unknown place of detention.
According to the author, who was present at his son’s arrest, at no time did the security
forces present an arrest warrant or invoke any grounds for the arrest of his son.
2.2
According to the author, Yahia Kroumi and his 17 fellow detainees were subjected
to appalling conditions of detention: the 18 men were crammed into a cell measuring four
square metres where they were forced to remain standing for lack of space in the oppressive
August heat. In just one day, most of them died on account of the conditions of detention.
The bodies were removed, wrapped in blankets, and loaded onto an army lorry. There were
very few survivors, and the author points out that his son may have died at that time. To
date, in spite of the many steps taken by Yahia Kroumi’s relatives, no one knows what
happened to him.
2.3
The author and his family have taken various steps, both judicial and administrative,
to determine the fate of Yahia Kroumi, but these have been in vain. The author and his wife
visited the different police and gendarmerie units in Constantine to enquire whether their
son was being held there. On 24 December 1995 and 25 February 1996, the family filed
requests for information concerning the disappearance of Yahia Kroumi with the
prosecution service in Constantine. On 29 March 1997, in response to a request by the
Prosecutor-General of the Constantine court, the criminal police in Constantine wilaya
produced a statement in which it officially denied any involvement in Yahia Kroumi’s
arrest. During the year 2000, the author submitted a request to the Ministry of the Interior in
response to which he was told that investigations concerning his son had failed to determine
his whereabouts. On 26 August 2000, the author and his wife also wrote to the ProsecutorGeneral and to the State Prosecutor to inform them of their son’s disappearance. In spite of
all these requests, no thorough investigation has been carried out into the disappearance and
the author has never received any information about his son’s fate.
2.4
On 28 June 2000, the author also sent a registered letter to the Chairman of the
National Human Rights Observatory (ONDH). On 5 December 2001, the Kroumi family
received a reply from the National Consultative Commission for the Protection and
Promotion of Human Rights (CNCPDH) 1 informing them that Yahia Kroumi was unknown
to the security forces and had never been arrested by them. On 9 September 2004, the
Kroumi family received an invitation from the Commission to attend a hearing held by its
members for the families of disappeared persons. No information was provided on the fate
of Yahia Kroumi during the hearing.
1
GE.14-22365
CNCPDH has replaced ONDH.
3