Algeria : Confirmation of Adel Saker’s enforced disappearance
Alkarama had contacted these two UN organs on 30 June 2008, a few weeks after Mr Saker was summoned on 26 May 2008 to appear at the headquarters of the Security Services of the District of Tamalous (Wilaya (canton) of Skikda), to which he responded. (see press release)
Today, we have the legal confirmation of the arrest and the transfer of Mr Saker by the services of the Tamalous police on the same day, 26 May 2008, to agents of the DRS (Départment du renseignement et de la sécurité - Department for Intelligence and Security), the army intelligence services.
We recall that:
Mr Saker Adel, born on 28 January 1977 had already been arrested in 1994, when he was a minor, and had been detained for three years before being released.
A year after his release, he was again arrested in 1998 and detained for a year, and again in 2001, also being detained for a year.
Confronted with these incessant persecutions by the local DRS services, Adel's parents decided to send him in 2003 to Syria to complete his studies in Arab literature.
After a year and a half of legal residency in Syria, during which time he continued his studies normally, he was arrested in January 2005 by the Syrian intelligence services who said they were acting at a request of the Algerian security services.
It is in these conditions that he was sent back to Algeria on 26 February 2005, where he was arrested at the Algers-Dar El Beida airport by the DRS (Département du renseignement et de la sécurité - Department for Intelligence and Security) services. He was detained incommunicado for a whole year during which he was gravely tortured for several months; he notably endured torture by electricity, and the rag technique, and was subjected to serious sexual abuse.
His parents were not able to obtain news from him during that whole year despite their numerous undertakings with diverse institutions. Having then alerted the press, several newspapers reported his arrest.
This is certainly the reason that on 25 February 2006 he was presented by the DRS services to the Algerian Prosecutor, and accused of "belonging to a terrorist network", in particular for having been the "intermediary between Al Qaeda and the Algerian GSPC". This accusation was probably to justify his long incommunicado detention as he was freed the next day.
However, the persecutions did not stop - he was regularly questioned by the local police and kept in its quarters without any reason being given for this.
On 26 May 2008, he was again summoned to appear at the headquarters of the Security services inTamalous. The request came from a police officer who presented him with the summons at his home via Police officer.
Mr Adel Saker followed the instructions that very same day as was his habit, and went to the headquarters of the Security Services of Tamalous accompanied by a relative; however, he was not released the same day as was custom.
Alkarama expresses, more than seven months after his arrest, its strong concern for Mr Adel Saker's life and physical integrity, knowing the treatment to which persons arrested and detained incommunicado by the DRS services may be exposed. These services act in an autonomous way in complete impunity, and without any oversight by the political or judicial authorities.