can therefore be drawn with the Committee’s decision in the Arana case. It has been shown that, on arrival in Spain, the complainant was not handed over to the police services as she claims, but was released to her family. According to newspaper articles, no proceedings were engaged against her in Spain at the time, thus explaining why she was left at liberty. It was not until 30 March 2001, 17 months after her return to Spain, that the complainant was arrested by the Spanish Civil Guard. She had remained in Spain for that entire period, during which she had furthermore been very openly engaged in political activity on behalf of the Basque cause, rather than attempting to find a refuge in order to escape the “serious risks” of torture she reports. The complainant merely alleges that she was subjected to police surveillance. She makes no claim to have been subjected to house arrest or prevented from leaving Spain. The State party notes that it is difficult to understand why the complainant remained voluntarily on Spanish soil for more than a year and a half and engaged in pro-Basque political action. 7.4 The State stresses the absence of any link between the complainant’s expulsion from French territory and her arrest by the Spanish authorities more than a year and a half later after she had remained in Spain of her own free will. Her weak state during the period immediately following her return does not suffice to explain the delay between the date of her removal and the date of her arrest, nor the extended period she spent in Spain. 7.5 The State party adds that it is beyond the bounds of credibility to maintain, as the complainant does, that the purpose of returning her to Spain was to enable the Spanish police to question her about events prior to her flight to France in 1997 and her return to Spain late in 1999. 7.6 In view of the nature of the acts in which the press claims she may have been implicated - 20 or so acts of violence, some of them deadly - the Spanish authorities would not have waited 17 months to question her about those cases if they had seriously believed that she was involved. The mere fact of her weak state could not have delayed her interrogation for 17 months if that had been behind her expulsion to Spain. The State party therefore maintains that it is more likely that her arrest after such a period of time was due to new factors, subsequent to her return, that could not have been taken into account by France at the time when the removal measure was enforced. It also emerges from newspaper articles that the complainant’s membership of the “Ibarra” commando was not known at the time of her expulsion, and she was arrested in March 2001 immediately after being implicated by another ETA member. The State party asserts that it could not have taken these facts into account at the time when the expulsion order was enforced. 7.7 For all the above reasons, no failure to comply with the provisions of article 3 of the Convention can be deemed to have been established. Comments by the complainant 8.1 In a letter of 31 December 2003, the complainant maintains that special situations conducive to the practice of torture exist in a very large number of countries considered democratic by the international community. There is no irrebuttable presumption that torture cannot exist in the States of the European Union. 123