CAT/C/34/D/233/2003** Page 34 Issues and Proceedings before the Committee Consideration of the merits 13.1 The Committee has considered the merits of the complaint, in the light of all information presented to it by the parties, pursuant to article 22, paragraph 4, of the Convention. The Committee acknowledges that measures taken to fight terrorism, including denial of safe haven, deriving from binding Security Council Resolutions are both legitimate and important. Their execution, however, must be carried out with full respect to the applicable rules of international law, including the provisions of the Convention, as affirmed repeatedly by the Security Council. 19 Substantive assessment under article 3 13.2 The issue before the Committee is whether remo val of the complainant to Egypt violated the State party’s obligation under article 3 of the Convention not to expel or to return a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he or she would be in danger of being subjected by the Egyptian authorities to torture. The Committee observes that this issue must be decided in the light of the information that was known, or ought to have been known, to the State party’s authorities at the time of the removal. Subsequent events are relevant to the assessment of the State party’s knowledge, actual or constructive, at the time of removal. 13.3 The Committee must evaluate whether there were substantial grounds for believing that the complainant would be personally in danger of being subjected to torture upon return to Egypt. The Committee recalls that the aim of the determination is to establish whether the individual concerned was personally at risk of being subjected to torture in the country to which he was returned. It follows that the existence of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights in a country does not as such constitute a sufficient ground for determining that a particular person was in danger of being subjected to torture upon his return to that country; additional grounds must exist to show that the individual concerned was personally at risk. Similarly, the absence of a consistent pattern of gross violations of human rights does not mean that a person could not be considered to be in danger of being subjected to torture in his or her specific circumstances. 13.4 The Committee considers at the outset that it was known, or should have been known, to the State party’s authorities at the time of the complainant’s removal that Egypt resorted to consistent and widespread use of torture against detainees, and that the risk of such treatment was particularly high in the case of detainees held for political and security reasons. 20 The State party was also aware that its own security intelligence services regarded the complainant as implicated in terrorist activities and a threat to its national security, and for these reasons its ordinary tribunals referred the case to the Government for a decision at the highest executive level, from which no appeal was possible. The State party was also aware of the interest in the 19 Security Council Resolution 1566 (2004), at preambular paragraphs 3 and 6, Resolution 1456 (2003) at paragraph 6, and Resolution 1373 (2001) at paragraph 3(f). 20 See, among other sources, the Report of the Committee against Torture to the General Assembly (A/51/44), at paragraphs 180 to 222 and the Committee’s Conclusions and Recommendations on the fourth periodic report of Egypt (CAT/C/CR/29/4, 23 December 2002).