CAT/C/62/D/496/2012 referring to Mr. Barutwanayo’s appearance before the examining judge, 14 adds that the complaint submitted by Mr. Ndagijimana led to an investigation. It therefore cannot be said that no legal proceedings could be instituted if any of the persons under investigation in the case were found to have borne liability. Accordingly, the State party takes the position that the Committee should declare the communication inadmissible. 4.4 The State party asks that the protection measures requested by the complainant to prevent any acts of reprisal should be rejected, as he has never been subjected to persecution, and there is no reason to believe that he is at risk of irreparable harm. Complainant’s comments on the State party’s submission 5.1 The complainant submitted his comments on the State party’s submission on 23 July 2015. Maintaining that the Committee requires only the exhaustion of effective, useful and available remedies, he rejects the contention that he has not exhausted domestic remedies. In that regard, he again notes that the criminal complaint he submitted on 6 March 2008 led to a single cross-examination of the parties, the State party’s assertion to the contrary notwithstanding.15 The complainant submits that holding a single hearing cannot be deemed sufficient and that doing so is an indication that the State party has not conducted a prompt, effective and impartial investigation. According to him, the former governor of Cibitoke Province even acknowledged during the hearing that the complainant had been beaten by police officers. The complainant also states that it was not he but Mr. Barutwanayo, against whom no action was taken, who stood in the way of the investigation and the administration of justice by failing to respond to the summonses he was sent by the prosecutor’s office.16 Indeed, on 3 February 2011, in response to the inaction of the judicial authorities, the complainant again petitioned the public prosecutor at the Supreme Court to proceed with the investigation of his complaint, but to no avail. It had been four years since the incident, but there had still been no effective investigation into the violations of the complainant’s rights. 5.2 The complainant also notes that domestic remedies have been unreasonably prolonged. Drawing on the Committee’s jurisprudence,17 he considers that taking four years to initiate an investigation into allegations of torture is excessively long. Moreover, it would have been dangerous for him to pursue other options, given the pressure he was under, which forced him, for his own protection, to leave Cibitoke Province for a month after he was discharged from the hospital. The complainant also recalls that the police went to his home in search of him and that the former governor of Cibitoke Province had ordered the communal administrator to arrest him. 5.3 In addition, the complainant points out that he never dropped the complaint that he had submitted to the domestic authorities but that, as the acts remained unpunished for a long time, he had no choice other than to bring his case to an international court. He adds that the procedures are not mutually exclusive and that, despite the submission of his complaint to the Committee, it would be desirable for the Burundian authorities to initiate proceedings and prosecute the perpetrators. Lastly, he maintains that the protection measures granted by the Committee are appropriate. 14 15 16 17 GE.18-00818 The State party asserts that the complainant himself “admits that Mr. Barutwanayo appeared more than once before the examining judge”. The complainant points out that he never stated that Mr. Barutwanayo appeared more than once, but rather that Mr. Barutwanayo had been summoned several times but appeared only once. See footnote 6 above. 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 prolonged 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