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of being tortured.
7.4 The Committee notes that throughout a year of proceedings in Spain, X's representatives
based their arguments solely on asylum and did not invoke the right protected by article 3 of the
Convention. Nor did they present the Committee with serious grounds for believing that X
risked being tortured if he was expelled to Algeria. It is not alleged that X was detained or
tortured in Algeria before leaving for Morocco and Spain; it is not indicated precisely what he
did in FIS to justify his fear of being tortured. a/ On the contrary, X said in his first statement to
the Melilla authorities, with a lawyer and interpreter present, that his intention was to seek work
in Germany, and the truthfulness of that statement was not questioned during the asylum
proceedings in Spain.
7.5 The Committee concludes that the communication on behalf of X has not been sufficiently
justified as regards the claimed violation of article 3 of the Convention b/ but is rather a matter
of political asylum, making the communication incompatible with article 22 of the Convention.
8. The Committee therefore decides:
(a) That the communication is inadmissible;
(b) That this decision shall be communicated to the author and the State party.
[Done in English, French, Russian and Spanish, the Spanish text being the original version.]
Notes
a/ In the Committee's rulings on communications No. 13/1993 (Mutombo v. Switzerland) and
No. 15/1994 (Khan v. Canada), both authors alleged and submitted medical evidence and other
documents to demonstrate that they had been detained and tortured before fleeing their
respective countries.
b/ Compare decisions in cases No. 17/1994 (X v. Switzerland) and No. 18/1994 (X v.
Switzerland), which were declared inadmissible on 17 November 1994.
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Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Geneva, Switzerland
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26.02.2008