CCPR/C/116/D/2297/2013 5.13 The author notes that his situation is not an isolated case and that the State party has been found many times to have violated the Covenant in similar cases. He refers to a number of reports of international non-governmental organizations denouncing cases of enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention or torture. 5.14 The author considers that the failure to respect the rules of judicial procedure since his arrest constitutes a violation not only of article 9 but also of article 14 of the Covenant. The conduct of multiple criminal proceedings against him (three in total) demonstrates that he is being hounded. 5.15 In a submission dated 6 January 2016, the author’s counsel added that the trial in the first case, the so-called East-West Highway affair, began on 19 April 2015 and that, on 7 May 2015, the criminal court sitting at the Court of Algiers convicted the author of using improper influence, corruption and money-laundering and sentenced him to 10 years in prison and a fine of 3 million dinars at the end of a trial that the author described as farcical. One of his lawyers asked the court to examine the DRS officers who co-signed the record of the author’s confession, as well as the prosecutor and the investigating judge who interviewed the victim after 20 days of arbitrary detention and the doctor who was supposed to have examined him at the end of his period in police custody. The judges refused to hear these witnesses. The author and two of his co-accused did, however, denounce before the court the torture they had suffered at the hands of the DRS, but the judges refused to take account of these allegations. The author’s appeal in cassation, filed on 12 May 2015, is pending. 11 In the meantime, the author has staged multiple hunger strikes to protest his arbitrary detention. Algérie Télécom (Natixis-Luxembourg) affair 5.16 This case is characterized by numerous violations of international law, including the speciality rule, the presumption of innocence, the rule of double jeopardy, the principle of the non-retroactivity of more severe criminal law, and the rights of the defence in general (see para. 3.13 supra). 5.17 Furthermore, the so-called Algérie Télécom trial, which resulted in the author’s first conviction and his sentencing to 18 years in prison (reduced on appeal to 15 years, then 12), was conducted in record time for a case ending with such a harsh sentence. According to the author’s family, his lawyer spoke for just 10 minutes. The prosecutor’s summing up lasted for 1 minute and consisted only of a demand for the maximum sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment to be imposed. As for the examination of the defence witnesses at the appeal trial, judgment in which was handed down on 11 December 2012, the refusal to hear one key witness offers a further demonstration of the violation of the author’s rights under article 14 of the Covenant, the judge having stated that “even if this Fermine12 is in court, I will not hear his testimony”. The author was thus unable to have his witnesses examined. 5.18 In the case known as the Algérie Télécom or Natixis-Luxembourg affair, the Supreme Court, on 19 January 2015, overturned the appeal judgment of 11 December 2012 on the grounds that the law on money-laundering (an offence that did not exist at the time of the facts alleged, in 2003) had been applied retroactively and that the offences in question were in fact statute-barred. The Supreme Court then referred the case back to the Court of Appeal, which, in the summer of 2015 after several postponements, finally convicted the author and sentenced him to 12 years’ imprisonment in its judgment of 22 October 2015. The author has filed an appeal in cassation against this judgment. 11 12 10 As it is a criminal case, the author has no right of appeal; he can only file an appeal in cassation, that is an appeal on points of law, not on points of fact. Name of a witness representing the Natixis bank. GE.16-07656