CAT/C/51/D/376/2009 2.8 The complainant also stresses that the main witnesses to the incident, namely the other persons arrested and imprisoned under the same circumstances as the victim, have never been asked by investigators about the facts of the case or the conditions of their detention. In addition, the individuals concerned have never had the opportunity to testify as civil claimants, as is standard practice in criminal investigations. Thus, the family never had the legal possibility to file a complaint since, according to the judicial authorities, and as confirmed before the Committee in May 2008, an investigation was already under way. According to the complainant, this is a pretext that seems to have been provided solely as a means of denying the victim’s family the right to know the truth, to lodge a criminal complaint with the public prosecutor’s office and to obtain redress. As a result, despite all the efforts made by the family, none of the perpetrators of the offences committed against Mounir Hammouche, although they are easily identifiable, has ever been questioned. The complainant reiterates that her family has attempted to use existing legal channels, but that all their efforts have proved to be ineffective,4 and that, to this day, the family of Mounir Hammouche continues to be denied its right to justice. The complainant therefore requests to be relieved of the obligation to continue pursuing domestic remedies in order for her complaint to be admissible before the Committee. The complaint 3.1 The complainant alleges that her son, Mounir Hammouche, is a victim of violations by the State party of articles 2 (para. 1), 11, 12, 13 and 14, read in conjunction with article 1, and alternatively, article 16, of the Convention. 3.2 According to the complainant, there is no doubt that Mounir Hammouche was subjected to torture. His fellow prisoners, who were arrested under the same circumstances and detained in the same place, namely the Territorial Centre for Research and Information in Constantine, and under the same conditions, all reported being tortured by DRS agents from the Centre. The complainant maintains that thousands of people have been held at this centre and have subsequently disappeared; many died as a result of torture, while others were summarily executed in the 1990s. According to the consistent accounts of Mounir Hammouche’s close friends and relatives, his corpse, which was returned to his family with an official order for immediate burial, bore signs of torture, including a head injury and bruises on his hands and feet. This physical abuse was directly responsible for his death, with the fact that he died constituting unmistakable proof of its violence and intensity. The complainant adds that Mounir Hammouche’s torturers intended to cause him intense suffering, since it would be impossible to subject a person to such violence unintentionally. The purpose of the torture was to obtain information or a confession from him, to punish or intimidate him, or to coerce him on the grounds of his purported Islamist affiliation. At the time of his first arrest, he had, in fact, been reproached for having a beard and wearing Islamic dress. Furthermore, there is no doubt that the offences perpetrated against Mounir Hammouche were committed by members of the Intelligence and Security Department, who were agents of the State acting in an official capacity. The complainant concludes that the physical abuses inflicted on the victim constitute acts of torture as defined in article 1 of the Convention. 3.3 The complainant also invokes article 2, paragraph 1, of the Convention, pursuant to which the State party should have taken all “effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction”. She adds that Algerian legislation contains no provision prohibiting the use of confessions or 4 GE.13-49959 The complainant refers, inter alia, to communications No. 238/2003, Z.T. v. Norway, decision adopted on 14 November 2005 and No. 195/2002, Mafhoud Brada v. France, decision adopted on 17 May 2005. 5