Concerns in Europe: January - June 2001
45
Amnesty International September 2001
AI Index: EUR 01/003/2001
paedophile”. The trial of the officers on charges of
grievous bodily harm and abuse of their authority was
still under way in June.
In June it was announced that in October the
relevant magistrate (preliminary hearing judge) would
start examining the prosecutor’s requests for 95
people to stand trial, following a criminal
investigation into allegations that on 3 April 2000 over
40 inmates of Sassari prison were subjected to cruel,
inhuman and degrading treatment, in some cases
amounting to torture, by dozens of prison officers
employed in various Sardinian penal institutions (see
AI Index EUR 01/03/00). In addition to prison
officers, the accused included the former director of
Sassari district prison, the former regional director of
Sardinian prisons, certain doctors employed in Sassari
and two other Sardinian prisons - Macomer and
Oristano - as well as the directors of these two prisons:
a number of the Sassari inmates were transferred to
these prisons immediately after the incidents of 3
April but the relevant officials did not report their
physical state on arrival.
Human rights violations by members of the
armed forces in Somalia in 1993 and 1994
(Update to AI Index: EUR 01/03/00)
In May, following up on information given in a letter
sent to AI in January 2000, the Ministry of Justice
stated that the relevant judge of preliminary
investigation, endorsing the request of the Milan
Public Prosecutor’s office, had ordered that criminal
investigations concerning the alleged rape and murder
of a Somali boy in March 1994 should be closed
without further action.
During the period under review it was also
reported that Florence Appeal Court had declared that
a crime of abuse of authority - for which a Livorno
court had sentenced a former Italian paratrooper to 18
months’ suspended imprisonment in April 2000 - was
covered by a statute of limitations. He had been
sentenced in connection with the treatment of a
Somali man, Aden Abukar Ali, photographed while
Italian soldiers, including the paratrooper in question,
were in the process of attaching electrodes to his body.
Universal jurisdiction over crimes
against humanity
(update to AI Index: EUR 01/001/2001)
In February the Supreme Court of Cassation annulled
a Rome Appeal Court ruling of September 2000
ordering the release of former Argentine military
officer Jorge Olivera.
He had been arrested in Rome in August 2000 on
the basis of an international warrant issued by France
for the abduction, followed by torture, of French
citizen, Marie Anne Erize Tisseau, in Argentina in
1976. The French statute of limitations did not apply
because the unresolved “disappearance” was seen as a
continuing crime. While full examination of the
relevant French extradition request was still pending,
Rome Appeal Court considered an application by
Jorge Olivera for provisional release or house arrest.
The court, noting that Jorge Olivera’s defence lawyers
had presented a death certificate for the victim,
recording her death in 1976, said that the crime could
not, therefore, still be continuing and stated also that
the crime of which he was accused was covered by a
statute of limitations, indicating that under Italian law,
the statute of limitations normally applied to the crime
of abduction after 15 years (or under certain
circumstances up to a possible maximum of 22 years
and six months). On this basis, the court ruled that
there were no grounds to detain Jorge Olivera who
was released and who immediately returned to
Argentina.
The Procurator General appealed against the
court’s decision, the Minister of Justice announced an
internal disciplinary investigation into the conduct of
the appeal court judges and the Public Prosecutor
opened an investigation into an apparently false death
certificate presented to the court.
AI expressed extreme concern at the court’s
decision, pointing out that, under international law,
the scale and magnitude of human rights violations
committed under military rule in Argentina constitute
crimes against humanity and, therefore, cannot be
subject to statutes of limitation.
The Court of Cassation ruled not only that the
appeal court had released Jorge Olivera on the basis of
a false death certificate, but given the Argentine
context, it should have considered the alleged
abduction as one aimed at subverting democratic
order, a discrete crime to which the statute of
limitations did not yet apply. It returned the dossier to
Rome appeal court for examination of the extradition
request.
K A Z A K S T A N
UN Committee against Torture reviews
Kazakstan’s first report
On 9, 10 and 17 May the UN Committee against
Torture reviewed Kazakstan’s first report on steps the
country had taken to implement the provisions of the
Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman
or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The
Committee noted several positive aspects, and the
difficulties associated with problems of transition.
However, it expressed concern about a number of
points including the absence of a definition of torture
as provided for by Article 1 of the Convention in penal
legislation; the numerous and continuing allegations
of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment by law enforcement personnel (including
beatings of members of the political opposition); an
apparent pattern of failure of officials generally,
including the procuracy, to provide a prompt,
impartial and full investigation into allegations of
torture and ill-treatment, as well as the failure
generally to prosecute, where appropriate, the alleged
perpetrators; and the allegations that judges refuse to