CAT/C/34/D/233/2003**
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to a medical examination report by the prison doctor which indicated that the complainant
had suffered injuries in prison.
10.2 Counsel refers to a Swedish television broadcast of 10 May 2004 on entitled “Kalla
Fakta”, examining the circumstances of the expulsion of the complainant and another
individual. 14 The programme stated that the two men had been handcuffed when brought to a
Stockholm airport, that a private jet of the United States of America had landed and that the
two men were handed over to a group of special agents by Swedish police. The agents
stripped the clothes from the men’s bodies, inserted suppositories of an unknown nature,
placed diapers upon them and dressed them in black overalls. Their hands and feet were
chained to a specially-designed harness, they were blindfolded and hooded as they were
brought to the plane. Mr. Hans Dahlgren, State Secretary at the Foreign Ministry, stated in an
interview that the Egyptian Government had not complied with the fair trial component of the
guarantees provided.
10.3 According to counsel for the complainant, following this programme, the Swedish
Foreign Ministry sent two senior representatives to Egypt to discuss with the Egyptian
Government how the two deportees had been treated. Results of the meeting are not known
apart from an Egyptian denial of maltreatment and that an investigation under Egyptian
leadership, but with international participation and medical expertise, would be involved.
Three separate investigations in Sweden have also resulted and are ongoing: (i) a proprio
motu investigation by the Chief Ombudsman to determine whether the actions taken were
lawful, (ii) a criminal investigation by the Stockholm public prosecutor, upon private
complaint, on whether Swedish Security Police committed any crime in connection with the
deportation, and (iii) an investigation by Parliament’s Constitutional Committee into the
lawfulness of the Swedish handling of the cases.
10.4 On 15 June 2004, the Aliens Appeals Board granted the complainant’s wife and her
five children permanent resident status in Sweden on humanitarian grounds. Later in June, the
Egyptian Government through prerogative of mercy reduced the complainant’s twenty-five
year sentence to fifteen years’ of imprisonment. According to counsel for the complainant, the
complainant last met Swedish representatives in July 2004. For the first time, the meeting was
wholly private. After the meeting, he met his mother and told her that prior to the meeting he
had been instructed to be careful and to watch his tongue, receiving from an officer the
warning “don’t think that we don’t hear, we have ears and eyes.”
10.5 As at 20 August 2004, the date of the submissions, there was no information as to the
announced inquiry in Egypt. 15 However, that day, the Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs
announced in a radio broadcast the receipt of a Note from the Egyptian government rejecting
all allegations of the complainant’s torture and considering an international inquiry
unnecessary and unacceptable. The Minister of Foreign Affairs also considered there reason
to be self-critical concerning the Swedish handling of the case.
10.6 Counsel submits that the retrial fell patently short of international standards, being
conducted in a military court with limited time and access available to the defence resulting in
14
Counsel has supplied a transcript of the programme.
Counsel supplies a public statement by Amnesty International, dated 28 May 2004, entitled “Sweden :
Concerns over the treatment of deported Egyptians” calling for an “international, wide-ranging, independent and
impartial investigation ” (EUR 42/001/2004), and, to similar effect, a statement by Human Rights Watch, dated
27 May 2004, entitled “Sweden : Torture Inquiry Must Be Under U.N. Auspices”.
15
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