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D. Middle East and North Africa

6. Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

233. In a visit to the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya in May 2009, representatives of Amnesty

International noted that the Internal Security Agency (ISA) appeared to have unchecked powers in practice to arrest, detain and interrogate individuals suspected of dissent against the political

434 Human Rights Watch, “Double jeopardy: CIA renditions to Jordan”, 7 April 2008. Available from www.hrw.org/en/node/62264.

435

A/HRC/4/33/Add.3, para. 16, footnote 4. 436

Ibid., appendix, para. 15.

437 “Jordan”, Amnesty International report 2009, available from

http://thereport.amnesty.org/en/regions/middle-east-north-africa/jordan. 438

Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, opinion No. 18/2007 (A/HRC/10/21/Add.1). 439

Alkarama for Human Rights press release, 13 March 2008, available from

http://en.alkarama.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=70:jordan-m-issam-al- uteibi-sheikh-almaqdisi-liberated-on-march-12-2008&catid=24:communiqu&Itemid=120.

system or deemed to present a security threat, to hold them incommunicado for prolonged periods and deny them access to lawyers, in breach even of the limited safeguards set out in the country’s Code of Criminal Procedure.440 In addition, Human Rights Watch recently reported on continuing practices of incommunicado and secret detention in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.441 234. In 2007, the Human Rights Committee adopted its final views in Edriss El Hassy v. Libya (communication No. 1422/2005). The Committee held that the alleged incommunicado detention of the author’s brother, from around 25 March to 20 May 1995, and again from 24 August 1995 “to the present time” constituted a violation of articles 7 and 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.442 With respect to article 6 of the Covenant, the Committee held that, as the author had not explicitly requested the Committee to conclude that his brother was dead, it was not for it to formulate a finding on article 6.

235. In 2005, the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances received the case of Hatem Al Fathi Al Marghani, who was reportedly held in secret detention by the Libyan Security Services from December 2004 to March 2005. During that period, he was not informed of any charges against him nor brought before a judge. He was allegedly detained for having publicly expressed his dissatisfaction with the arrest and condemnation to execution of his brother on the grounds of endangering State security.443

236. In 2007, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention reported on the case of Mohamed Hassan Aboussedra, a medical doctor who was arrested by agents of the Internal Security Services in Al-Bayda on 19 January 1989. The agents had no formal arrest warrant and no charges were laid against him. His four brothers were also secretly detained for three years until information was made available that they were detained at Abu Salim prison. On 9 June 2005, Mr. Aboussedra, who was also held at Abu Salim, was moved to an unknown location by agents of the Internal Security Services, in spite of a judicial order for his release. After being sentenced to a prison term of 10 years in 2004, the Appellate Court ordered his release on account of the years that he had already spent in prison, from 1989 until 2005. Mr. Aboussedra was not

released, however; he was kept in detention and transferred to an unknown location. He has been

440 “Libya: Amnesty International completes first fact-finding mission in five years”, Amnesty International news release, 29 May 2009, available from

www.amnesty.nl/voor_de_pers_artikel/49650. 441

Human Rights Watch, “Truth and justice can’t wait; human rights developments in Libya amid institutional obstacles”, 12 December 2009. See, in particular, chapter VII on the Internal Security Agency.

442 See also Youssef El-Megreisi v. Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Human Rights Committee communication No. 440/1990.

secretly detained ever since, and has been neither able to consult a lawyer, nor been presented to any judicial authority, nor been charged by the Government with any offence.444

237. On 13 October 2009, the experts conducted an interview with Aissa Hamoudi, an Algerian/Swiss national, who was held incommunicado for three months in a prison in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya without knowing where he was detained. On 18 November 2007, while on a business trip to the country, Mr. Hamoudi was arrested in Tripoli by policemen conducting a simple identity check. After a day spent in police custody, he was handed over to the interior services, who took him to a prison where he was held for three months in a cell with four other men, and interrogated every week, or every other week, on numerous topics. He was asked detailed information about his family, and general questions on his political views, his

relationship to Switzerland and other countries. In the last month of his detention, he was left in a cell without a bathroom or water, and had to ask permission for anything he required. In this period, he was not interrogated, but was beaten once when he tried to go on a hunger strike. He was then transferred to the “passports prison”, run by the Exterior Services, which housed around 4,000 detainees, mainly foreigners, waiting to be sent back to their respective countries, where he was held for 10 days in terrible sanitary conditions, but was never interrogated. He witnessed other detainees being tortured, but was not tortured himself. It was here that a representative of the Consulate of Algeria found him, and took steps to initiate his release. He was never charged with anything, and for his entire stay under arrest he was held totally incommunicado. His family did not know where he was, and although he was kept in known places, he was secretly detained.445