CCPR/C/118/D/2128/2012 the author of this decision and directed him to produce a brief, signed by an authorized lawyer, within the following two weeks. The author approached several lawyers, asking them to allow him to pay in instalments. He engaged one of them and was obliged to sell some of his household effects in order to pay part of the fees, even though the lawyer was not well enough qualified to mount a proper defence. 2.14 On 27 May 2009, by Judgment No. 12792, the Ordinary and Minor Offences Division of the Supreme Court dismissed the author’s appeal against Mascara Appeal Court Judgment No. 289 of 25 January 2006 (see para. 2.12). According to the author, in July 2009 the Director of ETGR once again enlisted the aid of a person who was related to the Minister of the Interior in an effort to have the executive branch intercede on his behalf with the judicial authorities and secure protection for him. 2.15 On 10 June 2006, a year after the dismissal of the author’s complaint, the Director of ETGR lodged a complaint under article 300 of the Criminal Code with the Bouhanifia prosecution service against the author for making malicious accusations against him. On 24 April 2007, by Judgment No. 596, the Court of Bouhanifia sentenced the author to a 1-year suspended sentence and fined him DA 20,000. In the civil suit, it ordered him to pay DA 50,000 in damages to the Director of ETGR. The author appealed this ruling in the Appeal Court of Mascara. 2.16 On 26 March 2008, by Judgment No. 1928, the Appeal Court of Mascara upheld Judgment No. 596 of 24 April 2007 of the Court of Bouhanifia, but struck down the 1-year suspended sentence. On 1 April 2008, the author entered an appeal against this decision in the Ordinary and Minor Offences Division of the Supreme Court of Algiers. Since then, 42 months have gone by, and the appeal remains pending before the Supreme Court. 2.17 In March 2009, in an unsigned letter to the Mascara prosecution service, the ETGR staff association reported further incidents of embezzlement and corruption allegedly committed by the Director of ETGR. The new public prosecutor of Mascara ordered the Mascara police to launch a preliminary enquiry. On 3 May 2009, the author informed the public prosecutor about the complaint that he had lodged in 2005, which had been dismissed. As a result, the prosecutor took the investigation out of the hands of the Mascara police and instructed the Mascara gendarmerie to carry out a second investigation; he then decided to reopen the investigation into the author’s complaint of 2005. 2.18 In September 2009, the gendarmerie of Mascara submitted its report on its preliminary investigation, which confirmed all the allegations made by the ETGR staff association, to the Mascara prosecution service. The Mascara prosecutor referred the case to an investigating judge. That same month, the public prosecutor decided to reopen the investigation into the complaint filed by the author in 2005. A month later, the author was summoned to the Bouhanifia police station. The author adds that in October 2009 the executive branch again interceded with the Mascara judicial authorities in order to protect the Director of ETGR. As a result, the Mascara judicial authorities reversed their decision to reopen the investigation into the author’s complaint and divided the new case into two different cases at the investigation stage in order to avoid a classification of “serious offence”. 2.19 On 4 March 2010, the author was summoned to the Bouhanifia police station and was arrested immediately upon his arrival. The police officers told him that he was being arrested in enforcement of Appeal Court Judgment No. 289 of 25 January 2006, whereby he had been sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment for insulting a public official. That same day, he was put in Mascara prison. He was given a brief medical examination and found to be in good health. 2.20 The author claims that the conditions in Mascara prison are not in conformity with the requirements of the Covenant. He states that the prison was overcrowded, housing at 4 GE.16-23057