CAT/C/58/D/682/2015 Exhaustion of domestic remedies 2.13 The complainant stresses that Mr. Alhaj Ali has exhausted all available effective remedies. On 31 December 2014, the Court of Cassation in Rabat, ruling at last instance, upheld the extradition request by the Saudi authorities. Since the decision was not subject to an ordinary appeal, it became final and binding once it had been confirmed by decree of the Head of Government. A copy of the ruling was sent to Mr. Alhaj Ali’s lawyer. The complaint 3.1 The complainant claims that the State party would be violating article 3 of the Convention if it extradited her husband, Mr. Alhaj Ali, to Saudi Arabia. 5 3.2 The complainant points out that Mr. Alhaj Ali has already been prosecuted and convicted in the Syrian Arab Republic, and that he served the resulting sentence. 3.3 She stresses that the human rights situation is particularly troubling in the requesting State, where rights are violated without any regard to the State’s international human rights commitments. Saudi Arabia has been condemned on several occasions by international human rights bodies for systematically violating fundamental rights. The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has condemned the Saudi authorities on many occasions for the widespread practice of arbitrary detention6 and for failing to respect guarantees of a fair trial. 3.4 The fundamental rights of citizens are systematically violated, but even worse violations are suffered by foreign nationals, who are the victims of systematic discrimination, particularly as a result of the sponsorship system (kafala), which institutionalizes a form of enslavement of migrant workers to their Saudi sponsor (kafil), who has the power to prevent them from leaving the country, to expel them from the country and bring a legal action against them. Practice of torture in Saudi Arabia 3.5 Although Saudi Arabia is a State party to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, there is a persistent practice of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in the country. During its last universal periodic review, Saudi Arabia received numerous recommendations to criminalize torture and to abolish corporal punishment, which it noted but did not accept. The country still does not have legislation criminalizing torture. Instead, torture is institutionalized through the imposition of corporal punishment by criminal courts, including as a punishment for exercising freedom of expression. 7 5 6 7 4 The complainant also refers to article 41 of the Riyadh Arab Agreement on Judicial Cooperation: “No extradition may be carried out in the following cases: … (h) if charges relating to any crime have been made in the territory of the requested party, or if a judgment has been passed in respect of the same crime in the territory of a third contracting party.” The complainant refers to the report of Alkarama Foundation entitled “Saudi Arabia: UN experts declare detention of Yahya Shaqibel arbitrary”, 5 February 2014, available at: http://en.alkarama.org/saudi-arabia/press-releases/1190-saudi-arabia-un-experts-declare-detention-ofyahya-shaqibel-arbitrary. The complainant mentions the recent case of liberal blogger Raif Badawi, in which a final judgment was passed in 2012 sentencing him to 10 years’ imprisonment and 1,000 lashes for posting opinions on his website that were deemed too liberal by the Saudi authorities. The young blogger received 50 lashes in January 2015. GE.16-15793