CAT/C/46/D/341/2008 provide prompt and fair prosecution and punishment of perpetrators of torture or illtreatment violate the principle of non-derogability.4 7.8 The complainant considers that the action taken by herself and her family since 1998 to shed light on her husband’s death falls within the scope of article 45 of the abovementioned implementing legislation, which is an impediment to the exhaustion of effective and useful remedies. The complainant was thus not obliged to exhaust other remedies to meet the conditions for admissibility under article 22, paragraph 5 (b) of the Convention. 7.9 On the merits, she notes the suspicious attitude of the State party’s authorities in respect of the autopsy report of November 1998. The victim’s family had to wait until their request was submitted to the Committee before the State party decided to give them a copy of the autopsy report. The complainant stresses that the victim was in very good health before being imprisoned at Mechraâ-Sfa gendarmerie. When he came home, however, he said that he had been severely beaten. He was vomiting blood some hours after his release. It was the authorities’ responsibility to ensure that the integrity of the detainee’s person was respected, and it was thus the responsibility of the prosecution service to conduct a prompt, impartial and independent investigation, as the victim’s death could have been linked to his detention. Given the content of the autopsy report that the family has now received, which shows death from cardiac arrest, the complainant wonders why the authorities concealed the conclusions of the report for 11 years, if not to prevent the family requesting a second forensic opinion at the proper time. 7.10 To demonstrate that the autopsy report had not been undertaken in a serious and professional manner, the complainant asked several forensic medical examiners to analyse it. They are unanimous in the conclusion that the report was brief and terse. They consider that the cardiac examination is inadequate, and it is impossible to draw a conclusion of cardiac death from the elements noted in the report. The only information on the state of the victim’s heart is the existence of “several haemorrhagic areas on the cardiac surface”. According to the forensic experts consulted by the complainant, that is not specific to heart failure and cannot, by itself, lead to the conclusion that the macroscopic aspect was characteristic of acute heart failure, that being the direct cause of death. The specialists are of the opinion that the terms “cyanosis of the extremities”, “foam” and “pulmonary congestion and severe pulmonary oedema” in the autopsy report are characteristic of deaths resulting from asphyxia and are not specific to acute heart attack. In any case, the examination carried out by the two doctors from the Tiaret health sector who signed the autopsy report is not sufficient to lead to a conclusion of death from cardiac arrest in a person aged 32 and in full health at the time of his detention. Professor Patrice Mangin, Director of the University Forensic Medicine Centre in Switzerland also subscribes to this analysis. The complainant also notes that the medical certificate of death issued on 3 April 2006 refers to a suspicious death, while the autopsy report submitted by the State party does not allow that conclusion to be reached. This seriously challenges the credibility of the autopsy report released 11 years after the event. 7.11 As concerns the witness statements, the complainant states that the records of the hearings of Mr. Boudali Benaissa, Mr. Mohamed Belkacem and Mr. Djilali Malki were never communicated to the Committee. That being so, the State party’s arguments are not based on any tangible proof, in contrast to the signed witness statements submitted to the Committee by the complainant in her initial complaint. The absence of proof also makes it impossible to identify the persons who modified their initial statements. Even though those persons were questioned by the State party, the complainant considers the method used to be unreasonable, in that the witnesses were questioned at the place where they had been 4 GE.11-43885 Ibid. 11