CAT/C/50/D/430/2010 routinely used in Tunisia as an investigation method in cases involving prisoners of conscience and ordinary prisoners. The latter are almost invariably subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, including kicks, slaps and punches, during interrogation. Uncooperative suspects are subsequently subjected to torture.8 Torture is used to extract confessions from ordinary prisoners concerning alleged crimes and to conclude unsolved cases. 3.2 According to the complainant, the assurances given by the Tunisian Government in its two notes verbales that it would safeguard the physical and psychological integrity of Mr. Abichou are of no value, as Tunisia has failed to honour its diplomatic assurances to a State from which it was requesting the extradition or return of one of its citizens in the past.9 Furthermore, during a telephone conversation with the complainant’s counsel, the lawyer of Mohamed Jelouali, a defendant in the same case, said that his client claimed to have been assaulted by the customs officials who had arrested him, then tortured by police officers at the Goulette police station, to whom he had been handed over on the same day. He was repeatedly punched, kicked and beaten with truncheons for five days following his arrest. He was interrogated during the course of his first night in custody in order to deprive him of sleep. He was not brought before an investigating judge until 25 days after his arrest, in violation of Tunisian law, which limits the duration of police custody to 6 days. Mohamed Jelouali and his lawyer gave this information to the investigating judge, the judges of the court of first instance and the appeal judges, but none has taken appropriate action to address these gross violations of the victim’s rights. According to his lawyer, the second defendant in the same case, Mohamed Zaied, suffered similar treatment. The two decisions of 27 June 2009 delivered by the Tunisian court of first instance both referred to the use of torture against Mohamed Zaied and Mohamed Jelouali, which had been reported by their lawyers and used as an argument for the defence. However, the judge, without providing any substantive reasons, refused to take the use of torture into account in the two cases.10 8 9 10 GE.13-45615 (CCPR/C/TUN/CO/5, 28 March 2008, para. 11). The complainant refers to a report by the World Organization against Torture (OMCT) and the Tunisian Association against Torture (ALTT) (“Note sur le suivi des recommandations du Comité des droits de l’Homme par la Tunisie”, published in August 2009), which refers to what it describes as the very frequent use of torture by police officers and prison wardens against persons who have been arrested or convicted and detainees in ordinary criminal cases. The complainant refers to the case of Sami Ben Khemais Essid, who was extradited from Italy in June 2008 and tortured by State security officials in the Ministry of the Interior a few months after his arrival in Tunisia. The Italian authorities had cited the Tunisian Government’s diplomatic assurances as justification for the extradition (European Court of Human Rights, Ben Khemais v. Italy, Case No. 247/07, 24 February 2009). Case No. 17946: Whereas the defence rests its case on the claim that the confession made by the accused [Mohamed Zaied] during the preliminary investigation was obtained under duress and is unsubstantiated, this confession is corroborated by circumstantial evidence consisting principally of the items seized from the accused and their arrest after the events that are the subject of the present case. The Court is therefore entitled to refuse to set it aside, given the weakness of the argument (Tunis court of first instance, Case No. 17946, hearing of 27 June 2009, p. 22 of the sworn translation of the judgement supplied for inclusion in the case file by the complainant). Case No. 17911: Whereas the defence rests its case on the claim that the incriminating testimony recorded by the investigator was obtained by force and is unsubstantiated, this testimony has been corroborated by circumstantial evidence consisting principally of the items seized and confiscated and the quantity of drugs that had been expertly loaded into a lorry and were ready for export. The Court has therefore rejected this argument (Tunis court of first instance, Case No. 17911, hearing of 27 June 2009, p. 27 of the sworn translation of the judgement supplied for inclusion in the case file by the complainant). 5