A/HRC/31/57/Add.1 Government fails to fully and expeditiously cooperate with the mandate issued by the Human Rights Council in its resolution 25/13. 655. In the absence of convincing information to the contrary, the Rapporteur concludes that there is substance in the allegations presented in the initial communication, reiterated above, and thus, that the Government of the United States, by participating in the interrogation, arbitrary arrest, incommunicado detention and extraordinary rendition of Mr. Elkassim Britel as well as by providing assistance to those perpetrating acts of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, has violated his right to be free from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, as codified, inter alia in the articles 1, 2, 7, 12, 13, 14 and 16 of the CAT. 656. The Special Rapporteur reiterates that “individual responsibility for complicity in torture arises also in situations in which State agents do not themselves directly inflict torture or other ill-treatment but direct or allow others to do so, or acquiesce in it” (A/707/303, para. 23) 657. The Special Rapporteur urges the Government of the United States to conduct a fair and impartial investigation into the incidents, to prosecute and punish those responsible and to provide Mr. Elkassim Britel with adequate redress. (j) JAL 26/06/2015 Case No. USA 13/2015 State Reply: 04/11/2015 Allegations concerning the situation of Mr. X, a 21-year-old naturalized American citizen, who was sentenced to death on 15 May 2015 by a federal American jury for use of a “weapon of mass destruction”, bombing of a public place and malicious destruction of property in relation to the Boston marathon bombings in April 2013. 658. The Special Rapporteur thanks the Government of the United States for its reply, dated 4 November 2015, to the present communication. 659. The Rapporteur takes note of the Government’s indication that due to the ongoing status of the litigation concerning Mr. X, it cannot provide substantive comment on this case. The Rapporteur finds that the Government, in its reply, does not sufficiently address the concerns raised in the initial communication, that the imposition of a death sentence rather than a life imprisonment sentence in view of the length of the judicial appeals process anticipated in this case, may prolong and heighten the suffering of the victims and their families, as well as of the detainee; and that the decision of a federal jury to impose the death penalty to the detainee for a crime committed in Massachusetts, which abolished the death penalty decades ago, may open a new chapter in the use of capital punishment in the State of Massachusetts and run counter to the efforts to abolish this practice in the United States. 660. As observed by the Special Rapporteur in his 2012 report to the General Assembly (A/67/279), there is evidence of an evolving standard within international bodies and a robust State practice to frame the debate about the legality of the death penalty within the context of the fundamental concepts of human dignity and the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. This evolving standard, along with the resulting illegality of the death penalty if imposed or executed under circumstances that violate such prohibition, is developing into a norm of customary law, if it has not already done so (para. 74). Even if this customary norm is still under way, the Special Rapporteur considers that most conditions under which capital punishment is actually applied renders the punishment tantamount to torture and that under many other, less severe conditions, it still amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (para. 75). 661. As further observed in the Special Rapporteur’s interim report to the General Assembly mentioned above, conditions on death row are often worse than those of the rest of the prison population and often include lengthy and anxiety-ridden wait for uncertain 109