CAT/C/67/D/780/2016 21 September 2015. He states that after he submitted his claim to the court, the staff of prison No. 30, where he was then being held, beat him in an attempt to force him to retract the claim, which he ultimately did. On 8 May 2018, however, he wrote to the court about the treatment to which he had been subjected and the court resumed consideration of his civil claim on the basis of newly revealed circumstances. The hearing was scheduled for 20 September 2018.1 Issues and proceedings before the Committee Consideration of admissibility 6.1 Before considering any complaint submitted in a communication, the Committee must decide whether it is admissible under article 22 of the Convention. The Committee has ascertained, as it is required to do under article 22 (5) (a) of the Convention, that the same matter has not been and is not being examined under another procedure of international investigation or settlement. 6.2 The Committee recalls that, in accordance with article 22 (5) (b) of the Convention, it shall not consider any communication from an individual unless it has ascertained that the individual has exhausted all available domestic remedies. This rule does not apply where it has been established that the application of those remedies has been unreasonably prolonged or is unlikely to bring effective relief. 2 6.3 The Committee takes note of the State party’s observation that the complainant has failed to exhaust the available domestic remedies. According to the State party, the complainant failed to bring to court a claim for compensation under civil or administrative proceedings concerning the conditions of his detention and medical treatment from 11 June to 9 September 2015 but he could have done so independently from the response from the Investigation Committees.3 The Committee also notes the complainant’s own statement that he was unable to exhaust domestic remedies because he could not file a claim in court without a response to his complaint from the Investigation Committees. 6.4 The Committee further notes that the complainant submitted a claim about alleged torture in KTB-1 between 11 June and 9 September 2015 to the Regional Investigative Committees on 13 January 2016, some four months after being released from the KTB-1 medical ward. The Regional Investigative Committee took a decision on the complainant’s claim on 15 February 2016. Although from the information before the Committee, it is unclear whether the complainant received this answer, on 26 July 2016 he received an answer from the District Investigative Committee dated 17 March 2016 in response to his status inquiry. On 1 November 2016, he also received a letter from the Regional Investigative Committee dated 14 October 2016. In these circumstances and based on the information before it, the Committee cannot conclude that consideration of the complainant’s claims was unduly prolonged by the Investigation Committees. 6.5 The Committee notes that despite having obtained a response from the Investigative Committee that contained instructions for appeal in case of disagreement with its decision, the author did not appeal to the courts the refusal to open a criminal investigation against the staff of KTB-1. In the light of the above considerations, the Committee considers that the author has failed to exhaust the domestic remedies available to him and that his complaint is thus inadmissible under article 22 (5) (b) of the Convention. 7. 1 2 3 4 The Committee therefore decides: The complainant did not provide a copy of the civil claim, nor did he update the Committee on the outcome of the court proceedings. The author claims that he might be tortured in order to make him retract his complaint to the Committee, but does not mention any previous ill-treatment caused by his submission, including as a result of the complaints submitted to the District and Regional Investigative Committees, nor does he provide any details to support his claims. See, for example, E.Y. v. Canada (CAT/C/43/D/307/2006/Rev.1), para. 9.2. See also the Committee’s general comment No. 4 (2017) on the implementation of article 3 of the Convention in the context of article 22, para. 34. See para. 4.2 above.