CAT/C/25/D/144/1999
page 3
The State party’s observations on the admissibility and merits of the communication
4.1
The State party has not contested the admissibility of the communication and, in a letter
of 4 April 2000, it commented on its merits.
4.2
The State party points out that a consistent pattern of flagrant or massive violations of
human rights in a country does not in itself constitute a sufficient ground for determining that a
particular person would be in danger of being subjected to torture upon his or her return to that
country. There must be other grounds indicating that the individual concerned would be
personally at risk.
4.3
In the present case, the State party considers that the risk alleged by the author is
insufficiently substantiated. The author’s explanations of his political activities were general and
vague. At the first hearing relating to his application for asylum, he was unable to provide the
names of the organizations he had worked for. Moreover, the information he gave on the LTDH
was erroneous and the attestation by the ANR representative which he produced did not indicate
clearly what role he played in the ANR. His membership card shows a date of enrolment that
does not correspond to the date he mentioned to the Swiss authorities. In addition, the State
party possessed information to the effect that the ANR was not known as an opposition
movement in Chad.
4.4
The State party also considers that the account the author has given is not plausible.
With regard to his allegations that soldiers were looking for him, it is unthinkable that, if they
had really wanted to apprehend him, they would not have gone to his place of work, given his
statement that he continued going to work even after the soldiers had shown up at his home, or to
his mother’s home.
4.5
The State party also refers to the Committee’s General Comment on article 3, to the
effect that considerable weight will be given by the Committee to findings of fact that are made
by organs of the State party, and stresses that the communication is only one page long.
4.6
The State party points out that, contrary to what the author had claimed, the ANR has
subsidiary bases in the Sudan and the Central African Republic and its zone of operation is
located in eastern Chad. This has been confirmed by documents produced by the author himself.
The State party further maintains that the author claimed, on one occasion, that he had been
prosecuted for having incited young people to rebel, and on another, that his prosecution was the
result of the work of informants who had infiltrated the ANR or the youth movement.
4.7
The State party considers that the author’s statements regarding his behaviour after the
alleged attempts to arrest him and his escape route are again implausible. At the hearings he
claimed that he had gone to work during the three or four days preceding his departure, which
seems highly unlikely for a person who is wanted by the police. Moreover, he took the longest
and most complicated route across the whole of Chad and Libya on his way to Europe, whereas
two of his brothers live in Cameroon and he himself had specialized in smuggling people into
Nigeria.