CCPR/C/112/D/2132/2012 but without giving any information about the kind of inquiries being made or their progress. On 25 September 2004 the Kerouane family were given a hearing by the Ad Hoc Commission on Disappearances, but the Commission merely attempted to persuade them to accept the principle of reconciliation and thereby renounce their claim to have the truth about the fate of the disappeared persons established and justice done. 2.10 On 25 November 2005 the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances was apprised of the cases of several hundred individuals, including that of the three Kerouane brothers. This group complaint has done nothing to clarify the victims’ fate. The Algerian State has not replied to the Working Group’s requests. 2.11 The sister of the victims and the second author of the complaint, Fatima Zohra Kerouane, has attempted to assert the provisions of chapter IV of Ordinance No. 06-01 on the Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation, which deal with the handling of cases of disappearance. Under these provisions, a thorough investigation and inquiries must be carried out before a certificate of disappearance or an official declaration of death can be drawn up. The author received three certificates, one each for Adel and Mohamed Kerouane, attesting to their “death as members of terrorist groups”, and one for Tarek Kerouane, attesting to “disappearance under the special circumstances of the national tragedy”, and dated the same day, i.e., 28 May 2006, even though there had been no proper investigation. 2.12 Later, a death certificate for Adel Kerouane dated 7 November 2006 was sent to the family, giving the date of death, allegedly as a member of terrorist groups, as “1994”. Not only is no reliable and detailed information given in support of this statement, but several previous official documents contradict this date of death. In the decision of the Indictments Chamber of the Constantine Court dated 6 June 1995, Adel Kerouane had been stated to be at large, and in a letter of 20 January 1999, the Director-General of Collective Freedoms and Legal Affairs had said he was wanted by the police. The same applied to Tarek Kerouane, who had been described in an official certificate dated 28 May 2006 as disappeared, and then declared dead on 28 June 2006, with the date of death given as 31 May 1994. No evidence was produced in support of this statement. Moreover, two visiting permits had been issued after the presumed date of death, namely on 3 and 28 July 1994. Similarly, the 6 June 1995 decision of the Constantine Court again refers to him as “at large”, and thus, by implication, alive. The date of 31 May 1994 is in fact the date of Tarek’s disappearance, as given by the family to the court that pronounced him dead on 28 June 2006. Lastly, in respect of Mohamed Kerouane, the “certificate of disappearance under the special circumstances of the national tragedy”, issued on 28 May 2006, gives no information – no date, no reference to the place or to the circumstances of death, and no mention of where he is buried. 2.13 As to the exhaustion of domestic remedies, the authors state that all the measures they and their families have taken have ended in failure. The victims’ family have on several occasions reported the disappearance of Adel, Tarek and Mohamed Kerouane to the courts so that an investigation into their disappearance could be launched and their fate ascertained. The various barracks, police stations and gendarmeries in the region, the Constantine prosecutor’s office and the wilaya office in Constantine had all been approached in an attempt to find out what had happened to the victims. The family have also tried to have an investigation carried out by initiating proceedings under Ordinance No. 06-01 implementing the Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation. The family of the disappeared men also approached the local administrative authorities and the highest authorities in the land, i.e. the President of the Republic and the Ministry of the Interior, in a letter dated 2 July 2000, which was also addressed to the National Observatory for Human Rights, but to which they have never had a reply. GE.14-22477 5