CAT/C/38/D/298/2006
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requested the State party not to deport the complainants while their complaint was being
considered. In a note verbale dated 29 June 2006, the State party informed the Committee that it
was acceding to that request.
1.3 On 27 September 2006, the State party requested that the interim measures should be
lifted. On 19 October 2006, the Special Rapporteur on new communications suspended the
interim measures.
The facts as submitted by the complainant
2.1 In 1995, C.A.R.M. became the head of SIMA Computación, a company in San Andrés
Cholula, Puebla State, Mexico, which specialized in the sale, installation and maintenance of
computer equipment. His company was awarded a contract by an accountant to supply computer
equipment for the town hall. In the course of his work for the town hall, C.A.R.M. witnessed
irregularities and acts of corruption on several occasions.
2.2 In 2002, C.A.R.M. submitted a tender for the installation of equipment in the town hall
offices. The accountant allegedly called him into his office to tell him that a friend of the mayor
had also put in a tender at an inflated price and asked him to write a letter explaining the
differences in the prices. Subsequently, on 22 August 2002, the mayor’s secretary, who was also
the mayor’s nephew and acted as his spokesman, summoned him to ask why he had written such
a letter. He suggested that C.A.R.M. should also inflate his prices and that he should use
materials of inferior quality and give a percentage of the profits to the mayor. During this
conversation the mayor was in the next room with the door open. C.A.R.M. rejected the
suggestion.
2.3 On 22 September 2002, C.A.R.M. was informed by the mayor’s secretary that he no longer
had access to the town hall. C.A.R.M. then warned him that he would lodge a complaint with the
Revenue Bureau. The secretary informed him that they had contacts and were protected by the
Government. C.A.R.M. was subsequently contacted once more by the accountant, who told him
that he appreciated his work and the fact that he had been honest and that he had arranged the
disagreement between him and the mayor. He also told him that he had been awarded a contract
for the installation of computer equipment in the municipal prison. This work, which was carried
out between 25 September and 11 October 2002, involved prisoner-identification equipment.
C.A.R.M. thus had access to the list of prisoners. At that point, the prison director informed him
that key members of the Gulf Cartel were held in the prison and that his work would be
dangerous, since the purpose of the system was to keep them under surveillance.
2.4 On 11 October 2002, C.A.R.M. received two telephone calls from the accountant, who
informed him that his computer installation had been destroyed and that persons having ties to
prisoners protected by the mayor intended to kill him and his family. The accountant advised
him to leave the country. C.A.R.M. and his family left San Andrés Cholula the same day and
took refuge in a hotel in Mexico City. Several days later, a friend of the family went to their
house and found that it had been ransacked. There were several police officers at the site, who
asked her to tell them if she had any news of the family. The complainants immediately decided
to leave the country for Canada.