French returns to Ecuador to participate in investigations into his torture – La República CE

The French citizen Daniel Tibi returned to Ecuador to participate in the investigation of his detention and torture in the Andean country there is twenty years ago, reported today Center for Justice and International Law (Cejil) in a press release

C is the first time that Tibi returns to Quito after more than 20 years in order to participate in research The Office of the Human Rights Procurator in relation to his arrest, "imprisonment and torture" in the 1990s, stated in the memorial

that he was arrested on September 27, 1995, "without warrant" by police officers conducting an operation against drug trafficking.

According to Cejil, the Frenchman was arbitrarily deprived of his liberty in the Penitenciaria del Litoral, in the coastal town of Guayaquil (Suro) "where he was tortured and ill-treated."

He added that for these events, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IDH) sentenced, in 2004, the Ecuadorian state for illegal detention and torture against Tibi.

The court ordered the Ecuadorian state to conduct the necessary investigations to punish the perpetrators, at the time of finding that fourteen years had pbaded without any responsibility the perpetrators of the violations, "including police, judges, prosecutors or doctors involved".

According to Cejil, the Ecuadorian Human Rights Office is currently conducting the investigation under which to establish accountability for the facts.

"Back in Quito makes me move a lot, but I'm here because I have to go along with this process, I want to investigate and punish those responsible" according to Tibi's press release.

He added: "I did not want to stay with the feeling of unfairness and bad memories of the detention I suffered in Guayaquil, which destroyed my life at that time."

For Mario Melo, coordinator of the Center for Human Rights of the Pontificia Universidad Católica of Ecuador who studies the case, the process The Tibi case is a precedent important at the continental level with respect to due process in criminal investigations.

"The clarification of responsibilities regarding the arbitrary detention and torture of Daniel Tibi, is a message against impunity that allows this kind of events to be repeated," says Melo, according to Cejil in the letter.

For Elsa Meany, Cejil's chief counsel, it is "important" that there be an international follow-up of the process, since the

"We are here to remind ourselves that the inter-American judgment in the case of Mr. Tibi and international law establish the absolute obligation to investigate and punish torture "] he noted. EFE