CAT/C/62/D/493/2012 22 of the Convention, one of the following conditions must be met: the submission of a matter to the Committee must amount to malice or a display of bad faith or intent at least to mislead, or be frivolous; or the acts or omissions referred to must have nothing to do with the Convention.10 In the present case, the complainant considers that the State party has not established the existence of one of these conditions. 5.2 The complainant also rejects the argument that he has failed to exhaust domestic remedies and reiterates that more than five years have elapsed since the events and that, contrary to what the State party asserts without adducing any evidence, his criminal complaint did not lead to an investigation. 11 The complainant points out that the Committee requires the exhaustion of only effective, useful and available remedies. In this regard, he notes that, even though an investigation was opened against Mr. Nsabimana, several other persons were involved in the violence which he endured. As the State party itself states, to date, prosecutors have been engaged in an investigation aimed at securing significant evidence of the perpetrator’s guilt. The judicial authorities were therefore still allegedly investigating the case nine years after his complaint was filed on 22 September 2006. 5.3 The complainant then refers to the case of Niyonzima v. Burundi to point out that the Committee found that the lack of information or detail which might have helped the Committee to ascertain what progress had been made and to judge how effective the investigation might have been, despite the fact that the case had been brought more than eight years previously, constituted inaction on the part of the competent authorities, which had made it unlikely that any remedy that might provide effective reparation could be initiated, and that, in any event, the domestic proceedings had been unreasonably lengthy. 12 The complainant thus questions the veracity of the State party’s claims concerning the investigation carried out and considers that, even if an investigation was opened, it was not carried out in a prompt, effective and impartial manner. 5.4 The complainant further specifies that he never dropped his complaint but that, as the acts remained unpunished after a lengthy period of time, he was forced to take the case to international courts. He adds that the proceedings are not mutually exclusive and that, despite the fact that he has submitted his complaint to the Committee, it would be desirable for the Burundian authorities to initiate proceedings and to prosecute those responsible. 5.5 Lastly, the complainant notes that the domestic remedies have been unreasonably prolonged. Relying on the jurisprudence of the Committee, 13 he considers that a delay of five years and four months before an investigation is opened into allegations of torture is unreasonably long. With regard to the State party’s assertion that he has lodged no appeal regarding the lack of promptness on the part of the prosecutor, the complainant recalls that he was not able to make an application to the Attorney General in order to complain about the inaction of the deputy public prosecutor because, in the meantime, the deputy public prosecutor had become the Attorney General. An approach that involved making an application to the person that had refused to take action in his case was one that had no prospect of success. Furthermore, it would be dangerous for him to lodge a complaint, since those responsible for the acts of torture to which he was subjected are senior officials in the National Intelligence Service and persons affiliated with the current Government who have considerable power and means of exerting pressure. 10 11 12 13 GE.18-00819 Ben Salem v. Tunisia, (CAT/C/39/D/269/2005), para. 8.4. In the absence of any documentation to support his claim, the complainant emphasizes the difficulty of verifying the assertions of the State party, which claims that the judicial authorities launched an investigation as soon as they were apprised of the acts of torture. Niyonzima v. Burundi, para. 7.2. The complainant refers to Halimi-Nedzibi v. Austria (CAT/C/11/D/8/1991), para. 13.5, in which the Committee determined that a delay of 15 months before initiating an investigation into allegations of torture, which then failed to yield a result in two years, is unreasonably long and releases the complainant from the requirement to exhaust domestic remedies. He also invokes Dimitrijevic (Dragan) v. Serbia and Montenegro (CAT/C/33/D/207/2002), paras. 2.3 and 5.2; Dimitrijevic (Danilo) v. Serbia and Montenegro (CAT/C/35/D/172/2000), paras. 2.5 and 6.2; and Dimitrov v. Serbia and Montenegro (CAT/C/34/D/171/2000), paras. 2.3 and 6.1. 7