OTHMAN (ABU QATADA) v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT
61
NGOs), and whether it is willing to investigate allegations of torture and to
punish those responsible (Ben Khemais, §§ 59 and 60; Soldatenko, § 73,
both cited above; Koktysh v. Ukraine, no. 43707/07, § 63, 10 December
2009);
(x) whether the applicant has previously been ill-treated in the receiving
State (Koktysh, § 64, cited above); and
(xi) whether the reliability of the assurances has been examined by the
domestic courts of the sending/Contracting State (Gasayev; Babar Ahmad
and Others¸ § 106; Al-Moayad, §§ 66-69).
2. The applicant’s case
190. In applying these factors to the present case, the Court wishes to
state that it has only considered the open evidence led before SIAC, the
additional evidence which has been submitted to the Court (summarised at
paragraphs 83–92 above), and publicly available reports on the human
rights situation in Jordan (summarised at paragraphs 106–124 above). The
Court has not received the additional closed evidence that was before SIAC,
nor has it been asked to consider that evidence. Similarly, since it has not
considered SIAC’s closed judgment, it is of no relevance to the Court’s
own, ex nunc assessment of whether there would be a violation of Article 3
that SIAC, in forming its own conclusion on Article 3, considered
additional, closed evidence that was not recorded in its open determination.
191. Turning therefore to the evidence before it, the Court first notes that
the picture painted by the reports of United Nations bodies and NGOs of
torture in Jordanian prisons is as consistent as it is disturbing. Whatever
progress Jordan may have made, torture remains, in the words of the United
Nations Committee Against Torture, “widespread and routine” (see
paragraph 107 above). The Committee’s conclusions are confirmed by the
other reports summarised at paragraphs 106–124 above, which demonstrate
beyond any reasonable doubt that torture is perpetrated systematically by
the General Intelligence Directorate, particularly against Islamist detainees.
Torture is also practiced by the GID with impunity. This culture of impunity
is, in the Court’s view, unsurprising: the evidence shows that the Jordanian
criminal justice system lacks many of the standard, internationally
recognised safeguards to prevent torture and punish its perpetrators. As the
Human Rights Committee observed in its concluding observations, there is
an absence of a genuinely independent complaints mechanism, a low
number of prosecutions, and the denial of prompt access to lawyers and
independent medical examinations (see paragraph 108 above). The
conclusions of the Committee Against Torture (which are corroborated by
the reports of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the
Jordanian National Centre for Human Rights) show that these problems are
made worse by the GID’s wide powers of detention and that, in state
security cases, the proximity of the Public Prosecutor to the GID means the
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