CAT/C/51/D/376/2009 but the official refused to discuss the matter, adding that, in any event, an investigation was under way and that its results would be made known to the family in due course. 2.6 Given the lack of response to the family’s requests, the complainant wrote to the public prosecutor of Ras El Oued on 7 February 2007, asking for a copy of Mounir Hammouche’s autopsy report. The complainant also wrote to the chief prosecutor of Constantine. She received no reply from either of the two officials. All of the steps taken by the victim’s family have been to no avail, and domestic remedies have proved to be inaccessible and ineffective, owing to the inaction of the prosecution service and the authorities. According to the complainant, the authorities of the State party, including its judicial authorities, clearly refuse to hold the security services responsible, despite the latter’s direct implication in the death of Mounir Hammouche. The State party’s claim that an investigation was under way, which was the pretext given for refusing to register a criminal complaint, appears to have been made for no other reason than to deny the family its right to know the truth, to lodge a criminal complaint and to obtain redress. Furthermore, neither of the two officials approached by Mounir Hammouche’s family informed them of the results of the purported investigation. It is therefore reasonable to assume that no serious investigation has ever been carried out, since the authorities know that Mounir Hammouche most likely died as a result of the torture to which he and the other persons arrested at the same time had been subjected. 2.7 On 16 January 2007, the complainant reported Mounir Hammouche’s death in police custody to the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. On 18 January 2007, she also reported it to the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.2 In addition, the complainant refers to the concluding observations of the Committee against Torture concerning the State party’s third periodic report, in which the Committee expressed its concern at the fact that Mounir Hammouche’s family had not been granted access to the autopsy report.3 In the course of the Committee’s dialogue with the State party during the consideration of the latter’s periodic report in May 2008, Mounir Hammouche’s family finally learned the name of the doctor who had reportedly performed the autopsy. On that same occasion, the representative of the Government of the State party also stated that the family could request the autopsy report and records of the preliminary investigation. Armed with this information, in the summer of 2008, Yazid Hammouche once again approached the prosecutor of the Court of Ras El Oued and the chief prosecutor of the Court of Constantine in order to repeat the family’s requests. However, despite the State party’s official statements, the family has never succeeded in obtaining a copy of the autopsy report. According to the complainant, it seems reasonable to suspect that the autopsy report indicates torture as the cause of death. 2 3 4 The Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, jointly with the Special Rapporteur on torture, sent an allegation letter regarding the case of Mounir Hammouche to the State party on 20 February 2007. On 26 June 2007, the Government of the State party confirmed the facts and stated that the autopsy carried out by the head of forensic medicine at the University Hospital of Constantine had shown that the death of Mounir Hammouche was the result of mechanical asphyxiation by hanging and that this hanging was considered, prima facie, to be a suicide. On 3 August 2007, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions sent a followup letter to the Government of the State party, jointly with the Special Rapporteur on torture, asking the State party to provide them with a copy of Mounir Hammouche’s autopsy report. No response was received from the State party to this request. (Summary of cases transmitted to Government and replies received, Addendum to the Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Philip Alston, A/HRC/8/3/Add.1, pp. 21–24.) CAT/C/DZA/CO/3, para. 14. GE.13-49959