Alkarama wrote on 20 June 2008 to the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention acommunication concerning Mr. Imed Al Chibani, who has benn arrested and detained without due process of law since 10 July 2007. An earlier communication was sent on 17 August 2007.
Imed Al Chibani was born in 1978 in Benghazi and lives there. He was arrested on public roads by officers of the Internal Security in civilian clothes in the morning of 10 July 2007 and taken to local internal security centre in Benghazi near the "An nahr Assinyi" eye clinic.
He was last seen in these places by detainees who themselves were released on July 15.
The testimonies of these detainees have reported severe torture allegedly suffered by M. Al Chibani from the earliest days of his detention.
Imed Al Chibani had previously been removed by the Departments of Homeland Security on 5 December 2005, tortured and held incommunicado until 14 October 2006, when he was released. He had been the subject of a first urgent appeal on 25 January 2006 and a communication to the Working Group on Enforced Disappearances.
During his first detention, he was never brought before a magistrate or a judgement court.
Relatives of Mr. Al Chibani do not know why he was arrested on this second occasion but do specify that he had been threatened after his last release about his use of the internet.
His mother has made numerous efforts to get information on his fate with the services of the Internal Security of Benghazi who have never acknowledged holding him, until May 2008 when she was informed that he was in the Assaka prison and she could seek authorization to visit him.
It is in these conditions that she was able to visit him for the first time on 28 May 2008 and she could see that his health had badly deteriorated during his detention.
She also obtained confirmation that he was once again severely tortured for several weeks and he was not the subject of legal proceedings, and that he has never been brought before a magistrate to be formally charged.
There is no doubt that both the first detention without due process of law for 10 months, and the present detention of Mr. Al Chibani, constitute an arbitrary deprivation of liberty, contrary to both internal legal norms in force in the country and the relevant international standards set forth in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that Libya ratified in 1989.