Decision on the extradition of Dr Mourad Dhina pushed back to 4 April 2012

With the court room completely full, most of the people come to show their support for Dr Mourad Dhina were unable to even enter the court room. The Paris Court examined the extradition request on Wednesday 21 march 2012 in the presence of representatives of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Alkarama Foundation and Algeria-Watch as well as a number of French and international journalists.

« I don't know what I am accused of » exclaimed Dr Mourad Dhina as he spoke before the court. He was not the only one in the court room who pointed out the many inconsistencies in the file sent by Algiers and to question the reasons for which the French authorities acted upon the arrest warrant issued by the Algerian regime.

As of the beginning of the proceedings, the General Attorney himself pointed out the discrepancies in the Algerian file, stating that "it must be noted that a certain number of obligations are not respected, the first which is the most obvious, is to know what the object of the request is". Following such a serious statement, it is legitimate to wonder what motivated the General Attorney to consider the Algerian request in the first place.

The president of the court also pointed out that neither in the arrest warrant, nor in the extradition request sent by Algeria are the dates of the alleged offences or the locations of these identified, as it is stated they should be in the 1964 Franco-Algerian extradition convention. She also highlighted that the in absentia sentence of 20 June 2005 was based on an indictment from the criminal court of Algiers which was not sent to the court with the file about Dr Dhina.

Mr Antoine Comte, Dr Dhina's lawyer, highlighted during his intervention that the Algerian judiciary had been unable to provide the required documents after more than 2 months of Dr Dhina's detention. He also described a crucial document sent by the Swiss authorities and added to the file, which states that an investigation carried out by the Swiss federal police from 1994 to 2000, originally launched at the request of the Algerian authorities, was closed after having found absolutely no basis for the accusations against Dr Dhina.

When Dr Mourad Dhina was asked to speak, the room went silent. Without focusing on the legal aspects of the case, he underlined the inconsistencies of the accusations laid against him by the Algerian authorities, the aim of which is clearly to silence any opposing voice. Dr Dhina also aptly described the political nature of his struggle.

Following this remarkable speech, the General Attorney spoke again and quite inexplicably requested time to acquire additional information from the Algerian authorities, despite his own earlier statements and the fact that the hearing had clearly demonstrated the political nature of the affair which should have logically lead to the simple rejection of the Algerian request for extradition. The case was put for deliberation until next Wednesday 4 April.

The court then examined a request for Dr Dhina's conditional release which was again rejected despite the presentation by Paul Albert Iweins, former head of the Paris Bar Association, of new guarantees that Dr Dhina would attend the proceedings.