Comoros: an unfair punishment against the former president of the country
The State Security Court of the Republic of the Comoros has sentenced former President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi to life in prison on charges of high treason, despite the decision of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in which his detention was qualified as arbitrary.
The court decided to confiscate his property and deprive him of his political and civil rights, that is, "the right to vote and to hold public office.” Sambi appeared briefly on the first day of his trial after a long period of arbitrary detention. During his hearing he denounced the conduct of his trial, refusing to recognize the jurisdiction of this court on the grounds that its "formation is illegal.
Alkarama's work
On 29 May 2018, Alkarama submitted an urgent appeal regarding the former President of the Republic of Comoros to the UN Working Group warning about the violation by the authorities of several provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In its turn, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention confirmed, in its decision dated 19 November 2018, that the arrest and house arrest of President Sambi are arbitrary.
As a reminder, the victim was arrested on 19 May 2018 after attending a peaceful assembly the day before that took place in front of the mosque in Moroni, the country's capital. To justify the arrest, the Ministry of Interior sent a "circular note to officials of public security and order," explaining that it had taken this measure "to maintain public order and security."
On 20 August 2018, more than three months after his arrest, Mr. Sambi was brought before the investigating judge, Ali Hassan, the nephew of the current president of the Republic, who ordered his arrest pending his trial on corruption charges in order to legalize his detention.
Since then, Mr. Sambi has been in Moroni's Foegejo prison awaiting trial.
Political context
The arrest of former President Ahmed Abdullah Sambi comes amidst particular political circumstances, including controversial constitutional amendments made by the current president, Colonel Azali Asumani, who participated in the 1999 coup before being elected president of the country in 2016.
The latter announced on 28 April 2018, the organization of a referendum in July 2018 relating to the amendment of the Comorian constitution including, in particular, the presidential system rotating among the three islands that make up the Union of the Comoros in order to allow him to run in early presidential elections in 2019. The proposed amendment also provided for the abolition of the Constitutional Court, the highest judicial body in the Comoros responsible for overseeing presidential elections.
The amendments were criticized by opponents, including former president Sambi, as an abuse of influence and power. Despite the opposition boycott and low turnout in the referendum held on 30 July 2018, the draft constitutional amendment was approved with 92.74 percent of the vote.
Arbitrary detention
In its decision, the Working Group noted that house arrest is considered detention if the person concerned is detained in a limited area that he cannot leave. The Working Group also stated that the house arrest imposed on Mr. Sambi was an administrative measure outside any legal framework. He was also not brought before a judicial authority before 20 August 2018, which would have allowed him to challenge the lawfulness of his detention as stipulated in Article 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In a late communication to the Working Group, the Comorian authorities again tried to justify the deprivation of Mr. Sambi's liberty on a supposed "risk of disturbing public order". However, the Working Group noted the absence of concrete facts to justify such action, since the Government could not blame him simply for his presence at the impromptu assembly in front of the mosque. The experts considered that the imposition of house arrest on Mr. Sambi was directly linked to his exercise of his freedom of expression and peaceful assembly as stipulated in Articles 19 and 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The UN Working Group concluded that Ahmed Abdallah Mohamed Sambi's detention was arbitrary, and called on the Comoros government to "take the necessary measures to rectify his situation, compensate him for the damage and ensure non-recurrence."