E/CN.4/1996/35/Add.1 page 47 victim with a rubber truncheon during apprehension, kneed him in the testicles during a body check, struck him over the head with an object and kneed him in the testicles again at the police station. The officer was suspended pending the proceedings. The Magdeburg local court acquitted the defendant in a judgement dated 30 June 1995. The Magdeburg public prosecution office filed an appeal against the judgement with respect to a part of the indictment relating to an alleged kick in the testicles. 233. A number of persons attending a demonstration in Hamburg on 30 May 1994 were allegedly subjected to ill-treatment by police, including the spraying of irritant gas at close range directly into their eyes and beatings. Oliver Ne , a journalist covering the event, was allegedly punched in the face and hit repeatedly in the kidneys, pelvis and chest with batons. He was also reportedly pinned to the ground by two police officers, while a third officer removed one of his shoes and forcefully rotated his ankle, causing his ligaments to tear. Medical certificates revealed torn ligaments, as well as multiple bruising and abrasions to the whole of his body and to his limbs. 234. The Government replied that criminal proceedings were pending before the public prosecution office at Hamburg Regional Court for bodily harm in office and that the investigation should be completed shortly. 235. The Special Rapporteur also advised the Government that he had received follow-up information from the source of allegations concerning the beating of Abdulkerim Balikci by two police officers in Berlin on 3 August 1993. This case is reported in the 1994 report of the Special Rapporteur (E/CN.4/1995/34, paras. 301-302). The Government in its reply had informed the Special Rapporteur that an investigation had failed to substantiate the allegations. The source maintained that the office of the public prosecutor had reached a decision without regard to its own determination that a witness attesting that the alleged victim had not been struck by the officers could not have been present at the scene at the time he claimed. The source also indicated that the allegation that Abdulkerim Balikci had himself attacked two officers was not confirmed by another witness who viewed the entire incident and whose testimony had been quoted in detail by the public prosecutor. That witness maintained that Abdulkerim Balikci had in fact tried to run away when apprehended by the officers. 236. The Government replied that neither in the statement of the public prosecutor’s office at Berlin Regional Court dated 18 July 1994 nor in the decision on the complaint issued by the public prosecution at the Appeal Court dated 19 September 1994 was it clear that an eye-witness could not have been at the crime scene. Moreover, the police officers had not complained that they were attacked, but rather that they used necessary and proportionate force to apprehend the subject, who was resisting arrest. Urgent appeals sent and replies received 237. On 1 February 1995 the Special Rapporteur transmitted an urgent appeal concerning Fariz S ¸ims ¸ek, a Kurdish national of Turkey, who was reportedly facing deportation by the Free State of Bavaria. He had allegedly been tortured by police in Turkey in December 1990 during a detention of 17 days. His ordeal included the stubbing of lit cigarettes on his head and hand;