The Geneva-based Alkarama Foundation and the Union of Muslim Human Rights Activists in Lebanon addressed a detailed communication to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention regarding the arbitrary detention of 92 detainees held in Roumieh prison during the past three years.
The men were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the events which took place between May and September 2007 at the Nahr Al-Bared refugee camp, located in northern Lebanon some 20km from Tripoli.
The five month conflict saw the Lebanese army pitted against a group known as "Fateh al-Islam", during which the group used the refugee camp as their strong hold. "Fateh al-Islam" sustained heavy shelling, causing most of the refugees to flee the camp. The conflict ended in early September 2007, with the Lebanese Army taking full control of the camp.
82 of the 92 detainees in question were arrested between May and November 2007. Another 10 were arrested between 2008 and 2009. Most of the individuals were arrested at army checkpoints as they left the Nahr Al-Bared camp, while others were arrested at their homes. These arrests took place without warrants and without informing the detainee of the reasons for arrest. Source indicate that the Military Intelligence services are responsible for the vast majority of the arrest.
Following their arrest, most of the men were taken to the Ministry of Defense for interrogation, followed by an appearance before a military court, where they were meant to be sentenced.
However, the Lebanese Council of Ministers decreed on 7 June 2007 that the case should be referred to the Justice Council, rather than to the military court. All the prisoners were then taken to Roumieh prison, where they are still waiting, four years later, for their trials to start.
While in detention, most of the prisoners have undergone torture to force them to confess to belonging to "Fateh al-Islam" or being directly or indirectly linked to it. Some detainees have confessed, under duress, that they know someone or some people who participated in the battle, or have received phone calls from one of them.
For example, the detainee Jalal Ibrahim Mtellej was arrested simply for having received a telephone call, lasting a minute and a half, from a person thought to be a member of the armed group. On 28 May 2007 he went voluntarily to the Ministry of Defense after receiving a summons and was immediately arrested.
Most of the people arrested in this affair are in the same situation as Jalal Ibrahim Mtellej. The public prosecutor transferred their cases to the investigating judge on 20 August 2007, requesting that he undertake the necessary investigations and respond to the charges levied against them, thus issuing a prima facie arrest warrant in each case.
Although the investigations for each of the detainees finished only a few months after the judicial investigation hearing, the cases have not been brought before the Justice Council and no official guilty verdict was ever issued.
The unofficial excuse for the arrest is that the Lebanese authorities have a plan to build a courtroom inside Roumieh prison, and the "problem" is that local law bans indefinite detention in certain circumstances, including this case. This means that the detainees have no chance to contest the legality of their detention. They have more than once embarked on hunger strikes against the authorities' refusal to release them or start their trial.
The situation described above has become clear: that the detainees are being arbitrarily denied their freedom and that their current imprisonment falls under the third category considered by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. Arbitrary deprivation of liberty constitutes a violation of the terms of Articles 9 and 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Alkarama Centre in Geneva and the Union of Muslim Human Rights Activists in Lebanon therefore call upon the Lebanese authorities to take immediate steps to correct this state of affairs and bring it into conformity with the letter and spirit of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Lebanon has been a signatory since 3 November 1972, by releasing the prisoners and compensating them in accordance with paragraph 9 of article 5 of the Covenant.
Legal "pretext"
The current imprisonment of 92 detainees in connection to this case is contrary to paragraph 1 of article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees every individual the right to liberty and security of person, and forbids arbitrary arrest and detention.
Paragraph 2 of Article 9 also stipulates that "Anyone who is arrested shall be informed, at the time of arrest, of the reasons for his arrest and shall be promptly informed of any charges against him."
Paragraph 3 of Article 9 adds that "Anyone arrested or detained on a criminal charge shall be brought promptly before a judge or other officer authorized by law to exercise judicial power and shall be entitled to trial within a reasonable time or to release."
In this case, the 92 detainees were examined before the investigative judge a few months after their arrest by the security apparatus, and have been detained for further questioning.
It is worth noting that the Working Group, in its opinion no. 37/2007 on eight people detained in custody in connection with the assassination of Prime Minister Rafiq Al-Hariri, deemed that their continued detention without charge or accusation as a deprivation their guarantees provided to any person officially accused of a criminal offense, including the right to know the charges levied against him and the right to be tried within a reasonable time or otherwise released.
On top of that, the detainees have been imprisoned for four years, even though the investigation was completed, a violation of the principle that they must be tried within a reasonable time or released.
The circumstances adduced by the legal authorities to excuse themselves are based on article 108 of the Lebanese Criminal Procedure Law. This article limits the period of precautionary imprisonment to between two and six months, renewable in case of criminal charges, but does not limit the period of precautionary imprisonment for offenses relating to state security or certain other offenses. This positive law permitting the detention of a suspect for an indefinite period clearly contravenes Article 9 of the ICCPR.
In its opinion no. 37/2007, the Working Group confirmed that under international law pre-trial detention must be the exception and not the rule, and the rule must always follow the principle of innocent until proven guilty. On top of that, it indicated that "it is not enough that the detention should conform to national law, national law must itself conform to the relevant provisions of international law set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or in the relevant international legal instruments to which the State in question is signatory."
Furthermore, the imprisonment of the detainees in this case constitutes a clear violation of Article 14, which stipulates that every person is entitled to a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal established by law in the determination of any criminal charge against him, or of his rights and obligations in a suit at law.
In this case, the detainees have not been able to challenge the legality of their detention or imprisonment to this day. The various motions made by their families and lawyers have been fruitless. They are still being detained, since more than four years ago, without benefit of the most minimal guarantees rooted in the obligatory legal procedures.
The transfer of this case to the Justice Council by the Council of Ministers, a political body, is a violation of the principles of separation of judicial power from political power. The Justice Council's verdicts are final and not subject to appeal, in violation of the principle of two-stage process.
On the occasion of the annual comprehensive review (A/HRC/WG.6/9/LBN/2) and so forth, regarding the information gathered by the High Commissioner for Human Rights in November 2010, it was indicated that "a lack of accountability and transparency mechanisms with regard to special judicial mechanisms, such as... the Justice Council, to which judges were appointed by the executive branch, which then also took decisions on the referral of cases, in contradiction of the principles of separation of power, independence of the judiciary and equality before the law."
Thus the imprisonment of the detainees in this case since four years ago without any charges or trial violates the rights of the basic principles of a fair trial conducted according to international standards, and certainly makes this imprisonment constitute arbitrary detention. Therefore it falls under the third category requiring action upon viewing among cases submitted to the Working Group.