CAT/C/47/D/327/2007 Mexico had agreed to such assurances in another case and that it would have every reason to respect the assurances provided in the light of its obligations under the extradition treaty and in order to avoid damaging its international reputation. Moreover, the State party claimed that it had put in place a mechanism for monitoring the complainant’s situation in Mexico.8 5.4 With regard to the allegation of torture since his return to Zacatecas prison, the State party submitted that the complainant had not substantiated his claim or furnished any details to support it. It said that an inquiry held by Mexico had concluded that his allegations were “implausible”. 5.5 The State party maintained that the complainant’s allegations and the risk of torture at the time of his extradition had been examined closely by national courts and that, in the absence of obvious errors, procedural abuses, bad faith, bias or serious procedural irregularities, the Committee should not substitute itself for the national courts. 9 5.6 Alternatively, the State party contended that, should the Committee admit the communication, it was without foundation for the reasons given. Complainant’s comments on the State party’s observations 6.1 On 25 April and 26 September 2008 and 6 April 2009, the complainant challenged the State party’s observations and noted that the failure of the State party to question the worth of the diplomatic assurances provided by Mexico constituted a denial of justice. According to the complainant, the State party did not take sufficient account of the personal risk he ran of being tortured when it extradited him. Sending him back to the prison from which he had escaped, together with the fact that a guard of that prison had lost his life and the complainant’s accomplices had never been identified, would expose him to a personal risk. That was underlined by the content of international reports and the latest periodic report of Mexico to the Committee against Torture, which made clear that the use of torture was endemic in Mexico.10 In addition, his allegation of having been tortured in 1998 had never been refuted. With regard to the consideration of the events of 1998 by the State party, the complainant submitted that the Minister of Justice had deliberately misconstrued the sense of a letter received from the Mexican authorities, claiming that the complainant’s allegations of torture were unfounded. The complainant contended that none of the relevant sections of the letter indicated that his allegations were groundless, as the Government of Mexico merely stated that the allegations had no legal basis and that his presence in Mexican territory would suffice to guarantee his human rights and freedoms. The complainant maintained that the State party acted in bad faith and based its decisions on a false premise by rejecting his credibility with regard to the personal risk he ran of being tortured. The rulings by the national courts were therefore unwarranted because they were not based on the evidence. Moreover, the fact that the state officials who tortured him in 1998 had not been punished no doubt heightened his personal risk. 8 9 10 6 See communication No. 199/2002, Attia v. Sweden, decision adopted on 17 November 2003, para. 12.3; and Alzery v. Sweden (footnote 3 above), para. 11.5. Communications No. 282/2005, S.P.A. v. Canada, decision adopted on 7 November 2006, para. 7.6; No. 193/2001, P.E. v. France, decision adopted on 21 November 2002, para. 6.5; No. 183/2001, B.S.S. v. Canada, decision adopted on 12 May 2004, para. 11.6; and A.R. v. The Netherlands (footnote 4 above), para. 7.6. See the fourth periodic report of Mexico (CAT/C/55/Add.12, para. 299), in which the Government of Mexico admits that torture continues to be a problem in its territory despite the legal arsenal put in place to combat it.