CAT/C/53/D/514/2012 2.11 On the third day of detention in the Intelligence Service cells, the complainant received a visit from members of the Ligue Iteka, a Burundian human rights association, who noted that he had been subjected to torture. Alerted by numerous reports, the Minister for National Solidarity, Human Rights and Gender, Françoise Ngendahayo, personally visited the Intelligence Service headquarters on 3 August 2006. She made the following statement to the media: “I went to see the arrested persons ... They told me they had been beaten and I could see that they had. I asked the Director of the Intelligence Service (Documentation nationale) to put a stop to it.”3 2.12 No action was taken, however. Following the visit of the Ligue Iteka, a public statement signed by 10 human rights organizations and condemning the arrest of political figures by the Intelligence Service was sent to the Burundian authorities on 4 August 2006. The statement said that the visits made by the Ligue Iteka, detainees’ families and the Minister for National Solidarity, Human Rights and Gender had confirmed that three individuals, including the complainant, had been subjected to torture. It further stated that “the defendants are not permitted to see lawyers or doctors”. 2.13 On 9 August 2006, after a week in detention in the Intelligence Service cells, the complainant was brought before the public prosecutor of Bujumbura Mairie and formally charged with involvement in an attempted coup d’état. He was then transferred to Mpimba central prison. Despite repeated requests, he was not allowed to see a doctor. It was only on 1 September 2006, following a request by his lawyer for an expert opinion, that he was transferred to the Kamenge military hospital and examined by a government doctor, and received the treatment he needed. A specialist medical certificate was issued, attesting to the torture, indicating numerous unhealed injuries on the legs, feet, back and lower back, right shoulder, left hip and both arms, and concluding that “the individual concerned has recently been subjected to beatings and intentional injury by one or more straight instruments. The profusion of lesions of the same kind over almost the entire body is reminiscent of torture”. 4 The investigating judge, despite having agreed to the expert examination, took no action on the findings in the medical report and no investigation into the case was opened. 2.14 The complainant was detained for more than 5 months at Mpimba prison in appalling conditions that were exacerbated by overcrowding, with serious consequences for the prisoners’ health and safety. The complainant shared a small 3 by 5 metre cell, with no window or ventilation despite the suffocating heat, with the former President Domitien Ndayizeye and one other prisoner. He had to sleep on a small makeshift wooden bed put together by other prisoners, so as not to sleep on the floor. The cell had a kind of toiletshower, but there was water only between 3 and 4 a.m. The dust in the air gave the complainant a sinus infection that later necessitated two surgical operations on his nose. He also caught malaria. Water, food, medicines and bedding were provided exclusively by his family throughout his detention. 2.15 Although a decision to release him on bail was taken by the Council Chamber on 6 October 2006, it was never implemented and the complainant remained in detention without legal grounds until he was released on 16 January 2007, having been acquitted the 3 4 GE.15-00394 Agence France-Presse (AFP), “Préparation d’un coup d’état: les personnes arrêtées ‘battues’” (Arrested and “beaten” for planning a coup d’état), 4 August 2006 (article in Burundi Bwacu). Medical examination dated 1 September 2006, report in the file. The complainant explains that an expert examination can be requested by the investigating judge ex officio or at the victim’s request. In the present case, the request was sent to a government doctor who, after conducting the examination, sent his report back to the investigating judge in a sealed envelope. 5