Concerns in Europe: January - June 2001
65
Amnesty International September 2001
AI Index: EUR 01/003/2001
the torturers could not be established, but was reported
to have recently changed his mind in respect of two
officers and brought charges against them. He has
continued to argue that there was no proof that the
remaining eight had inflicted torture or known who
had done so. Most of the defendants were reported to
have told the court that, so long after the event, they
could not remember anything about the arrests in
Zornotza.
Reports of torture in incommunicado detention
AI noted that the number of new allegations that ETA
suspects were being tortured by Civil Guards or police
officers while being held incommunicado was
rising.
25
Iratxe Sorzabel Díaz , who had been expelled
from France to Spain in October 1999 after spending
three years in a French prison, was arrested in Hernani
(Guipúzcoa) on 30 March, on her way to work, and
taken to Civil Guard headquarters in Madrid. She is
currently under investigation in connection with a
number of crimes, including belonging to an armed
band and assassination. She was held incommunicado
for five days. She claimed that, from the moment of
arrest and throughout the following two days, she was
subjected to torture, and that for 16 hours this was
intensive. During the remaining three days she was
subjected to physical ill-treatment on only one
occasion. She alleged that she was beaten during the
journey to Madrid and subjected to electric shocks
within the vehicle; that, after arriving in Madrid, she
was subjected by six or seven officers to a brutal but
short beating of about 20 seconds; that she was
subsequently continually beaten around the head with
hands or a telephone directory and rolled-up
magazine; that she was asphyxiated with one plastic
bag, and another was pushed into her mouth as far as
her throat while her nose was covered, and induced
vomiting; that she was made to undress, stand in the
middle of a circle and continually bend up and down
or raise and lower her arms while being beaten; that
she was touched on her breast, bottom and pubis and
threatened, among other things, with rape and with a
torture method known as the “bath” (“bañera”) and
“well” (“potro”); that she was made to kneel on all
fours on a blanket and punched, and that foam rubber
or blankets were used to prevent marking. Iratxe
Sorzabel was seen daily by a doctor and on 31 March
was taken to San Carlos Hospital in Madrid for
examination. Photographs of her injuries were also
taken and a number of medical reports referred to the
existence of injuries. A formal complaint about torture
was lodged with an investigating magistrate of the
National Court.
Reported ill-treatment at CETI and
Moroccan border
Kingsley Ozazuwa, a Nigerian citizen who had been
staying since December 2000 at a reception centre for
undocumented immigrants and asylum-seekers, the
Centro de Estancia Temporal de Inmigrantes (CETI)
in Ceuta, was involved, on 21 April, in an altercation
with a private security guard in the centre’s dining
25
Common to many of the allegations were descriptions of
beatings around the head with hands or telephone directories, beatings
on the testicles or punches in the stomach, asphyxiation with plastic
bags, hair-pulling, or methods leading to physical exhaustion such as
standing facing the wall, squatting or bending up and down or for
room. Kingsley Ozazuwa told AI delegates, who
visited Ceuta in May, that the guard kicked him hard
in the stomach. The guard apologised. However, when
Kingsley Ozazuwa insisted that the police be called,
he was again beaten, this time by two guards. While
other Nigerians protested by throwing their food on
the floor, he was dragged outside and lay unconscious
while police were called. He was driven to hospital
after police called for an ambulance. He then spent
four days in the CETI’s medical centre. He was
subsequently taken to the National Police station of
Las Rosales, where he reportedly tried, without
success, to file a complaint for ill-treatment. He was
held there for 24 hours before being taken before a
judge and charged with an offence of theft and
inflicting injury (“lesiones y hurto”). Kingsley
Ozazuwa, who did not speak Spanish, told the AI
delegates that, although an interpreter and court-
appointed lawyer were present, he did not realise that
he had been charged with this offence and the charge
sheet he had been given had not been translated. He
had not been given a copy of the medical report issued
by the hospital, describing his injuries, which would
have helped to reinforce his own complaint. Kingsley
Ozazuwa was expelled from the CETI and spent
several days sleeping in the streets before being
offered shelter by a church organization, the Cruz
Blanca (White Cross). Five other Nigerians were also
temporarily expelled as a result of the incident.
The CETI director told the delegates, who visited
the centre in May, that he did not know whether there
were medical reports or judicial complaints in respect
either of Kingsley Ozazawa, or of a Nigerian woman
who had reportedly been beaten on the legs by a
security guard three months earlier and had required
hospital treatment.
26
He was, however, aware that the
security guards had medical reports testifying to their
own injuries. The director denied the suggestion made
by newspaper reports that a subsequent change in the
guards, who are contracted to the CETI by private
security company PROSESA, was connected to
incidents of ill-treatment at the centre.
The Ceuta CETI was opened in 2000 to replace
the much-criticized camp of Calamocarro and to
provide improved facilities for asylum-seekers or
undocumented immigrants. The great material
improvement in facilities was indisputable. However,
for reasons mainly unrelated to the CETI itself, a
climate of tension prevailed at the centre, with some
foreign nationals expressing genuine desperation at
the length of time they had been awaiting a response
to their applications for residence and work permits,
long periods, and threats.
26
The name of the woman has not been given