CAT/C/50/D/430/2010 1.3 On 26 August 2010, the complainant’s counsel informed the Committee that the State party had extradited Mr. Abichou to Tunisia on 25 August 2010. In the same correspondence, counsel confirmed the complainant’s desire to have the Committee continue with its consideration of the communication. 1.4 On 21 January 2011, the Rapporteur on new complaints and interim measures, acting on behalf of the Committee, decided that the admissibility of the complaint should be examined together with its merits. The facts as submitted by the complainant 2.1 On 17 October 2009, Onsi Abichou, a French citizen, was arrested by German police during an identity check in Germany, where he had gone for professional reasons. After confirming his identity, the police officers arrested him on the grounds that he was subject to an international arrest warrant issued by Tunisia on 14 March 2008. Mr. Abichou was subsequently held in the Saarbrücken remand prison. The detention order against him was renewed several times by the Regional High Court on the grounds that, taking into account the severe penalty to which he would be subject in Tunisia, there was a substantial risk that he would flee if granted provisional release. 2.2 The case against Mr. Abichou in Tunisia involves the following events: On 15 February 2008, a person named Mohamed Jelouali was arrested at the port of Goulette, Tunisia, as he was about to board a ship to Genoa. At the time he was behind the wheel of a lorry from which customs officials had just seized some cannabis. During his interrogation, Mohamed Jelouali revealed the name of one of his alleged accomplices, Mohamed Zaied, who was arrested on that same day at Tunis airport as he was about to board a flight to France. During his interrogation, Mohamed Zaied, “confessed”,2 quite possibly under duress, to having made a similar shipment of cannabis in October–November 2007 with the help of Mr. Abichou. 2.3 Following the interrogations, legal proceedings were brought against five people, only two of whom, Mohamed Jelouali and Mohamed Zaied, were in fact arrested; the other suspects were deemed to have absconded by the presiding judge. The suspects are to be tried in two different cases3 dealing with the same facts and events. 2.4 On 14 March 2008, the deputy public prosecutor issued two international arrest warrants for Mr. Abichou in the two cases. At that time, Mr. Abichou was in France and had not been troubled in any way by the judicial authorities. On 28 April 2008, the Interpol office in Tunis sent the Interpol General Secretariat a request for his arrest and extradition to Tunisia. 2.5 On 27 June 2009, the Tunis court of first instance (the Fourth Criminal Chamber) sentenced Mr. Abichou in the two cases under consideration4 to life imprisonment and to a 5-year immediately enforceable, non-deferrable term of imprisonment for forming a gang in Tunisia and abroad for the purpose of committing drug-related offences. 2.6 On 24 October 2009, following the arrest of Mr. Abichou by the German police, the investigating judge of the Eighth Bureau of the Tunis court of first instance sent a request from the Tunisian authorities addressed to the German judicial authorities for the extradition of Tunisian citizen Onsi Abichou. On 25 March and 6 May 2010, the State party sent two notes verbales to Tunisia requesting diplomatic assurances that Mr. Abichou’s 2 3 4 GE.13-45615 In inverted commas in the original complaint. Cases No. 17911/09 and No. 17946/09. See paragraph 2.3. The judge decided to combine the two sentences pursuant to article 56 of the Tunisian Criminal Code. 3