CAT/C/53/D/514/2012
was shown only a search warrant issued by an authority without the proper competence,
and a wanted notice.
2.2
The complainant was then taken to the headquarters of the National Intelligence
Service, where he also found the former Vice-President of Burundi, Alphonse-Marie
Kadege. He remained at the Intelligence Service premises until about 11 a.m. and was then
taken home for a search to be made. The search was conducted by two officers of the
Intelligence Service, but no valid warrant was produced. The police confiscated books,
documents used by the complainant in the Arusha peace negotiations and other property
that was never returned to him. At that time the complainant was still unaware of the reason
for his arrest and the house search.
2.3
After the search, at around 2.30 p.m. the same day, the complainant was taken back
to the Intelligence Service offices. He was taken straight to the office of the Deputy
Administrator-General of the Intelligence Service, Colonel Léonidas Kiziba, who
questioned him on his alleged part in preparing a coup d’état and a plan to assassinate the
President, Pierre Nkurunziza. The Colonel behaved in a threatening manner, demanding
that the complainant “tell him everything or he would get a beating”. As the complainant
denied any involvement, the Colonel ordered two plain-clothes intelligence officers to take
him into another room for a beating.
2.4
The complainant was taken into a small room, where the Administrator-General of
the Intelligence Service, Major-General Adolphe Nshimirimana, told him that he should tell
all or risk being subjected to considerable pain. With that, and without waiting for a reply,
the Administrator-General left the room and Colonel Léonidas Kiziba came in with an
intelligence officer whose main task would be to film and photograph the torture sessions.
The Colonel then ordered two intelligence officers to begin the interrogation. The
complainant was asked to admit that he attended a meeting in Ruyigi to organize a coup
d’état against the President, and to give the names of his accomplices. When the
complainant denied any involvement, the Deputy Administrator-General ordered six
intelligence officers to come in. Some were in uniform, some in plain clothes. All of them
had instruments of torture of various kinds: steel chains, iron bars, weighted ropes, tiny
chains with pointed ends, batons and other instruments. The Administrator-General of the
National Intelligence Service then ordered his men to torture the complainant. Major Jean
Bosco Nsabimana, known as “Maregaregare”, hit him on the shoulder blades with a plank.
The complainant, lying on the floor, was then beaten for 10 minutes on the toes, legs and
forearms with the various instruments the torturers had brought with them. He tried to
protect his genitals, which the officers tried to hit several times during the beating. He also
received violent blows to the back.
2.5
Whenever the beating became so violent that it might prove fatal to the complainant,
a brief halt was called, after which the interrogation and torture resumed with even greater
ferocity. The Deputy Administrator-General asked the complainant about a meeting he
attended, allegedly held — on an unspecified date — at the home of the former President,
Domitien Ndayizeye. When the complainant again denied any involvement, the
Administrator-General asked a Mr. Alain Mugarabona to come in, who stated that he had
seen the complainant at that meeting. After this statement, the Intelligence Service officials
beat the complainant again, hitting him very hard with hoses on the lower back, which
made him feel as though he was being cut in two. He was beaten so hard that his toes, legs,
forearms and back bled. The torturers were egged on by other intelligence officers, who
were laughing at what was going on. When he was about to pass out, another break was
ordered.
2.6
The questioning then continued, this time on the subject of the “Kampala Club”,
about which the complainant said he knew nothing, which prompted another beating. He
was screaming with pain and spitting blood. At that point, the Deputy AdministratorGE.15-00394
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