CAT/C/61/D/654/2015
The facts as submitted by the complainant
2.1
The complainant is a mathematics teacher at the Hay Khadra secondary school in
Tunis. In 1993, while he was a university lecturer in France, the complainant went to
Tunisia to attend his sister’s wedding. On 29 July 1993, at around 2 a.m., when he was
staying at his aunt’s residence, about 15 State security officers in civilian clothes turned up
in the middle of the night, without a warrant, and arrested him in front of his family. The
officers also searched the complainant’s room and seized his passport and 2,000 dinars that
he was intending to offer his sister as a wedding gift. As he was suspected of fomenting a
coup against the Rassemblement Constitutionnel Démocratique (Democratic Constitutional
Rally), which was then the ruling party, he was handcuffed, taken to the Ministry of the
Interior and interrogated about the purported attack, as well as his alleged links with Salah
Karker, a leader of the Ennahda party exiled in France.
Custody, interrogation and acts of torture
2.2
On arriving at the Ministry of the Interior, the complainant was escorted to a plush
office with padded doors on the fourth floor. A.S., accompanied by an officer, was seated
behind the desk. He introduced himself as the Director of National Security, without
revealing his name, and then asked the complainant “where the bombs were hidden”. The
latter replied that he had no knowledge of a bomb cache and that he had simply come to
attend his sister’s wedding. The exchange lasted for two minutes and A.S. then threatened
to fetch his sister. Rached Jaïdane insulted him, and the Director of National Security
nodded to an officer, who took the complainant to another room, where Mohamed Koussai
Jaïbi was introduced to Rached Jaïdane as one of his alleged accomplices. Mohamed
Koussai Jaïbi was lying on the ground with his clothes torn and his face bleeding and
swollen. His feet were bare, his bleeding right foot was apparently broken and he had
bruises on his hands.1 There were about six officers in the room. They ordered Mohamed
Koussai Jaïbi to state that Rached Jaïdane’s assignment was to put him in contact with
Salah Karker, a militant of the Ennahda Islamist movement who was in exile at the time in
France. A dozen officers then took Rached Jaïdane into another room on the same floor.
2.3
The complainant underscores that the Ministry’s teams of officers then took turns in
subjecting him to acts of torture for 17 hours. The officers asked him questions
accompanied by threats of torture and death. Rached Jaïdane, on receiving a first slap on
the neck, turned round and spat at the officer. By way of retaliation, all the officers present
punched him and beat him with truncheons and batons for several minutes. He was then
taken to another room with a chair and two desks on which they had placed a wooden pole.
The officers ordered him to remove his clothes. When he refused, they undressed him by
force, leaving him in his underpants. They hit him, beat him with a truncheon and
administered electric shocks to his abdomen. He was suspended on the pole, which was tied
to his ankles and wrists with pieces of cloth. He was then beaten in this position for about
30 minutes by a person called Belgacem, nicknamed “Bokassa”. Other detainees informed
him later that they had been subjected to torture by the same person.
2.4
The complainant managed to loosen the bonds and fell to the floor. The officers
began to hit him again, especially on the nails (he still has a scar on his right thumb); they
crushed cigarettes on several parts of his body, including one of his hands and his genitalia.
They then penetrated his anus with a stick, saying: “There you are, we pushed it in; do you
think that you’re a man?” The officers also threatened to bring in his sister and rape her.
Rached Jaïdane lost consciousness twice. The victim was allowed to pray at 12.30 p.m. in
the “roast chicken” position, after promising his torturers that he would confess everything.
Belgacem then made him sit down and brought him coffee. Rached Jaïdane pulled himself
together and dealt him a blow. Belgacem retaliated and the torture resumed. The officials
brought in an iron basin. The detainee was handcuffed behind his back. Two officers,
nicknamed Gatla and Fil2 respectively, entered the room. They plunged Rached Jaïdane’s
head into the basin several times. When he started to drown, Fil sat on his stomach to make
1
2
2
The complainant encloses a copy of Mr. Koussai Jaïbi’s complaint of torture, which contains a
detailed account of the torture that he suffered.
An Arabic word meaning “elephant”, with reference to the person’s striking corpulence.
GE.17-16785