CAT/C/62/D/496/2012 3.2 According to the complainant, the abuse to which he was subjected caused him severe pain and suffering and constitutes torture as defined in article 1 of the Convention: police officers threw him onto the bed of the truck, and his head slammed into it with such force that his glasses broke; for half an hour, after he fell to the ground, he was severely beaten all over his body by police officers wielding the butts of their rifles and their truncheons. He was brutally hit with a rifle butt on the legs and feet, in particular on his right ankle, and was left with a physical impairment that it took him weeks to recover from. He was also threatened by one of the police officers, who turned his gun on him, causing him considerable distress. The governor and the police then left him lying on the ground, in a serious condition without any help. These serious acts, which caused injuries that required several weeks of medical care, were clearly perpetrated intentionally by agents of the State party to punish the complainant for having questioned the orders of the governor of Cibitoke Province and to intimidate him to stop him defending his cousin from the governor’s alleged abuses. 3.3 The complainant also points out that the State party, in breach of its obligations under article 2 (1) of the Convention, has not taken the necessary measures, legislative or otherwise, to prevent the practice of torture in Burundi. According to the complainant, the State party has also failed to honour its obligation to investigate the torture inflicted on him and thus to bring the perpetrators to justice. The complainant adds that his is not an isolated case and that serious human rights violations by police officers go largely unpunished in Burundi. According to the complainant, since the State party has not adopted the legislative or other measures needed to prevent torture, it has failed to meet its obligations under article 2 (1) of the Convention. 3.4 The complainant also maintains that article 12 of the Convention, which requires the authorities to proceed to a prompt and impartial investigation wherever there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committed, has been violated by the State party in his case.11 He recalls that it is not necessary, for the purposes of article 12, for a formal complaint to have been lodged. In this case, he notes that on 6 March 2008, after leaving the hospital, he submitted a criminal complaint to the public prosecutor at the Supreme Court and that on 2 February 2011, as a result of the total absence of progress in the case, he had to resubmit the complaint. In addition, there was a radio report about his case, and, in view of the large audience of the station that broadcast the story, the authorities could not but have been fully informed of the acts of torture that he had endured. They were therefore automatically required to investigate those acts. However, no effective, thorough and impartial investigation has ever been conducted. With the exception of a single hearing to cross-examine the parties, which did not result in any follow-up, no other investigative step has been taken. The complainant also stresses that Burundian criminal law does not oblige prosecutors to prosecute perpetrators of torture or even to order that such acts be investigated. 12 The complainant therefore concludes that, since a genuine, prompt and impartial investigation into the allegations of torture to which he was subjected was not carried out, the State party acted in violation of its obligations under article 12 of the Convention. 3.5 The complainant also invokes article 13 of the Convention, while again noting that his case was not examined promptly and impartially. 3.6 The complainant is also of the view that the State party is in breach of its obligation under article 14, since the crimes perpetrated against him have gone unpunished and since he has not received any compensation — including for medical expenses — or any form of rehabilitation for the torture he endured. In view of the passivity of the judicial authorities, other remedies to obtain redress, such as a civil suit for damages, are entirely unlikely to be 11 12 GE.18-00818 The complainant refers to Sahli v. Algeria (CAT/C/46/D/341/2008), para. 9.6; Thabti v. Tunisia (CAT/C/31/D/187/2001), para. 10.4; M’Barek v. Tunisia (CAT/C/23/D/60/1996), para. 11.7; and Blanco Abad v. Spain (CAT/C/20/D/59/1996), para. 8.2. The complainant refers to the Committee’s recommendation that the State party remove all doubt regarding “the obligation of the competent authorities to institute, systematically and on their own initiative, impartial inquiries in all cases where there are substantial grounds for believing that an act of torture has been committed” (see CAT/C/BDI/CO/1, para. 22). 5