Morocco: Mohamed Nougaoui detained for 12 years following an unfair trial
On 30 September 2015, Alkarama submitted to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) a communication on the case of shopkeeper Mohamed Nougaoui, sentenced to 20 years in prison following an unfair trial. The 65-year-old father has now been detained for 12 years and is currently in custody at the Toulal 2 prison in Meknès.
Held incommunicado after his arrest for over a month and a half
On 8 June 2003, while Mohamed Nougaoui was visiting relatives in Tangier, officials of the Director-ate for Territorial Surveillance (DST) broke into his hosts' home and violently arrested him, weapons in hand and without judicial warrant.
Taken by force to the Tanger police station, Mr. Nougaoui was first detained for two weeks during which he was questioned about the attacks in Casablanca on 16 May 2003 and tortured physically and mentally, particularly by telling him that his wife and daughters were in a neighbouring cell while he heard women crying and screaming.
After two weeks of torture, Mr. Nougaoui was then transferred to the Temara detention centre, near Rabat, where he was held incommunicado for over a month, still subject to torture and ill-treatment. Under torture and threats, the victim was finally forced to sign written police statements containing trial confessions without being allowed to read them.
Unfair trial
Mr. Nougaoui was finally brought before the Tribunal of Rabat on 18 September 2003 and charged with "attempt to overthrow the regime by force", "constitution of a State in the Rif" and "constitution of a criminal group", accusations that he strongly rejected, together with all the statements that he had been forced to sign during his detention. Following the trial, in spite of his denials and of the absence of any evidence material, the victim was sentenced to 20 years in prison without parole, and never obtained the right to appeal, in violation of his right to appeal his sentence.
Inhuman and degrading detention conditions
In protest against his wrongful conviction and his inhuman and degrading detention conditions, Mr. Nougaoui participated several times in collective hunger strikes, the latest which extended from October to December 2014.
Far from responding to his requests, the prison authorities retaliated against him. Significant restric-tions on visiting rights were imposed on his relatives several times by the prison director. His daugh-ters were several times denied the right to visit him. Aged 12, the youngest of them who was born the year of her father's arrest states, "I sometimes feel that I have no father."
More recently, when his wife and daughters came to the Tangier prison to visit him on the occasion of Eid al Fitr on 28 September 2015, the prison authorities turned them away, saying that he had been transferred to another prison. Since then, they've had no news of their husband and father. Convinced that this transfer is an attempt to "punish" the prisoner for repeatedly having contested his detention conditions, Mrs. Nougaoui fears that he is again being subject to ill-treatments.
Steps taken by Alkarama
Given the given facts and the inability of the family to seek redress in their country, Alkarama asked the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) to render an opinion on the arbitrary nature of Mohamed Nougaoui's detention and request the Moroccan authorities to take immediate steps to rectify the situation and bring it into line with the standards and principles set out in the interna-tional Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), ratified by Morocco in May 1979, by releasing him without delay and by providing him adequate compensation in accordance with Article 5 para-graph 9 of the ICCPR.
For more information or an interview, please contact the media team to media@alkarama.org (Dir: +41 22 734 1008).