CAT/C/39/D/269/2005 page 6 authority is informed of alleged torture and the time a proper investigation begins as excessive.6 There is no effective remedy available to torture victims in Tunisia, because other appeal procedures are in practice flawed. A complainant can bring a private suit if the Public Prosecutor does not wish to initiate proceedings, but by so doing he forfeits the opportunity subsequently to seek criminal damages. The Committee has considered failure to bring proceedings to be an “insurmountable obstacle”, since it made it very unlikely that the victim would receive compensation.7 He notes that prosecutors do not investigate allegations of torture and abuse, and that judges regularly dismiss such complaints without investigating them. Thus, while appeal procedures exist in theory, in practice they are unsatisfactory.8 3.9 The complainant requests the Committee to recommend to the State party that it take steps to investigate fully the circumstances of the torture he underwent, communicate the information to him and, based on the findings of the investigation, take action, if warranted, to bring the perpetrators to justice. He also requests that the State party take whatever steps are necessary to grant him full and suitable compensation for the injury he has suffered. State party’s observations on admissibility 4.1 The State party forwarded its observations on the admissibility of the complaint on 21 October 2005. It objects that the communication is inadmissible because the complainant has neither used nor exhausted the domestic remedies available, which, contrary to his assertions, are effective. The State party points out that the complainant did not follow up on his complaint. On 4 September 2000, the very day that the complaint was filed with the lower court in Tunis, the Deputy Public Prosecutor invited the complainant, in writing, to produce a medical certificate attesting to the alleged bodily harm cited in his complaint; the complainant did not submit such a certificate. Even so, the Public Prosecutor asked the chief of the security service for the Tunis district to proceed with the necessary investigation of the related facts and report back to him. On 17 April 2001, the chief of the security service for the Tunis district stressed that the facts as related by the complainant had not been established but investigations were still under way. On the same dates and in the same places, on the other hand, the police had stopped and arrested people at an unauthorized gathering on the public highway. On the basis of that information, the Public Prosecutor assigned a deputy to question the persons cited in the complaint - the three policemen and the complainant. Questioned on 12 July 2001, 13 November 2001 and 11 July 2002 respectively, the three defendants all denied the facts as related by the complainant. One said he could not have been at the scene of the alleged incident because he was assigned to a different district. The other two had been at the scene of the unauthorized gathering but had been taken to hospital after being assaulted by a demonstrator. 6 See communication No. 59/1996, Blanco Abad v. Spain, decision adopted on 14 May 1998, para. 8.5. 7 See communication No. 207/2002, Dimitrijevic v. Serbia and Montenegro, decision adopted on 24 November 2004, para. 5.4. 8 See European Court of Human Rights, Aksoy v. Turkey, Preliminary objections, 18 December 1996, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1996-IV, para. 53.