CAT/C/56/D/578/2013
minutes later, parked his vehicle to await new passengers.
2.2 Suddenly, a uniformed police officer, identified as Noël Ndayisaba, accompanied
by four other uniformed police officers armed with rifles and holding belts in their
hands, approached him and seized him sharply by the neck while he was still at the
wheel of his bus. The officers ordered the complainant to get out of his vehicle.
2.3 The police officers then started kicking the complainant and lashing him with the
belts while he was still in the parking lot. They indicated that they were punishing him
for, according to them, having failed to return 700 Burundi francs (around US$ 0.45)
in change to one of his customers. The complainant was then taken by force to the
police station located next to the Bujumbura Market Management Company
(SOGEMAC), which is adjacent to the site of the former Bujumbura central market
and around 25 metres from the bus parking lot. Co -workers of the complainant who
had witnessed the beating attempted to follow the police officers to the station, but
they were refused entry. These co-workers then alerted the Radio Publique Africaine
(RPA) radio station, which then reported on the incident in its broadcast.
2.4 Upon his arrival at the police station, the complainant was ordered to lie down
on the floor and was stripped to the waist. For more than two hours, he was beaten,
pulled around the room, kicked by the police officers and lashed with their belts. The
beating was so severe that he lost consciousness for an undetermined length of t ime.
He was then left lying on the floor, without assistance. It was not until the
superintendent in charge of the police station located next to SOGEMAC came to
question his subordinates about what was happening that the abuse stopped. However,
the complainant received neither help nor medical attention, even though he was
clearly in need of both, given his condition. Because his telephone had been
confiscated by the police officers, the complainant was unable to call for assistance
himself. In the meantime, witnesses to the attack had managed to contact a friend of
the complainant, who had informed the family of what had occurred. The friend in
question also managed to gain access to the victim, whom he found sweating and in
agony, his naked, swollen body covered in bruises. The friend immediately demanded
that the victim be taken to hospital.
2.5 Nearly two hours after the incident, the complainant was taken to the emergency
room at Prince Regent Charles Hospital in Bujumbura. In response to a request for an
expert opinion, a government doctor performed an examination the day after the
incident and issued a medical certificate dated 16 May 2012. The certificate details the
medical consequences of the beating and of his injuries. 1
2.6 Although the complainant received the emergency medical care called for by his
condition, he continues to suffer acute pain and limited mobility of his right arm. He
also suffers from post-traumatic stress and severe anxiety and feels extremely guilty
about no longer being able to provide for the needs of his family, particularly those of
his four young children. His economic situation is very precarious; because of the
physical repercussions of the beating, he is no longer in possession of his former job
skills or able to do his job as a bus driver, which is a very physically demanding
occupation. While he previously earned a monthly salary of 250,000 Burundi francs
(around US$ 160), he no longer has any source of income and is unable to provide for
his family’s most basic needs.
2.7 The day after the incident, an investigation was begun into the acts of torture to
which the complainant had been subjected. On 16 May 2012, an officer of the criminal
investigation police requested an expert opinion, and a medical certificate signed by a
1
GE.16-01380
The consequences noted on the certificate included back pain and pain in his right arm caused by
the kicks he had received and the partial loss of the use of his right arm.
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