Testimony of torture

“I kill you and you will rejoin the list of disappeared ”

Mohamed Sebbar, 2003

Observatory of the human rights in Algeria (ODHA), Algeria-Watch, November 2003, Tranlation from french

I left Algeria in April 1992 to join Italy in order to settle in and to find an employment. At the time, the situation in Bosnia was dramatic and I followed what these people endured as exiles, rapes, slaughters through the various media. We observed so many injustices whereas the world remained silent in front of this massacre. Much more, it prevented the Bosnian people from arming itself to ensure its self-defence confronted with the Serbian aggression.
In front of all that and faithful to my Muslim education which preaches the support for the defenceless oppressed, I answered the call of my brothers and I decided to join Bosnia to help these people, just as other people helped us during the national liberation war against French colonialism.

I arrived in Bosnia on October 1992 and I integrated the rows of the Bosnian army. I could obtain bosnian nationality.
When the number of volunteers increased, Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic asked us to constitute a katiba volunteers under Bosnian army command.
The fight will continue until 1995, date on which the Dayton peace agreement put an end to the war. That led to our demobilization.
Since, I remained in Bosnia, profiting from the citizenship granted by the leaders of this generous country. I married a Bosnian and I became father of three children.

In 1999, at the time of the international conference for the rebuilding of Bosnia, the government asked me to leave the country because of the pressures exerted by the American administration. The latter asked the Bosnian government to bring me before the courts if I had commited anything contrary to the law. Bosnian answered it that I had not commited any act requiring my bringing before the courts. The government gave me to understand that the American pressures were very strong and that they threatened to suspend any economic aid as long as I would not be deported.
I then agreed to leave Bosnia to go to Malaysia, after agreement between the two governments. After a short stay in this country, I went to Saudi Arabia then I returned to Bosnia in 2001. I had seen president Alija Izetbegovic who had informed me that he had met president Abdelaziz Bouteflika during the summer 1999 in Geneva, in Switzerland and that he had spoken to him about my case. According to the Bosnian president, my case did not pose problem and Mr. Bouteflika had answered him that he had just issued the law of the civilian concord for those who had taken up arms and joined the maquis and that all the more so, an Algerian who had taken up arms to defend oppressed people did not have anything to fear and that he could quietly return to the country without being bothered.

This news delights me and I then decided to return to the country after eleven years of exile, far from my family.
I then legally arrived in Algeria with my wife and my three children. I was not bothered because I was not wanted. I started to regularize the situation of my wife and my children.

Six months after my return in the country, men from the military safety came to arrest me in my residence in Oran. I was then immediately transferred to the barracks from the DRS of Ben Aknoun, in Algiers.

As of my arrival in this barracks, all kinds of humiliations then started. From blasphemies to insults against my parents, all went on it. When I saw this outburst of violences against me, I allowed myself to say to them that I had had the protection (Aman) of president Abdelaziz Bouteflika and his promise that I could return in the country without problem, of the mouth of the Bosnian president.
They then locked me up in an individual cell of one meter out of two. And threw me two covers. That happened on December 27, 2002.

Five days later, they got me out of my cell to question me. There was nearly ten people around me. Each one asked me his question : Did I met named Hassan Hattab? Did I have contacts with him? Where are the other members of the group with which I was supposed to work? When did I met Oussama Ben Laden? About what did you discuss and about what did you agree?

When I answered them that I did not have any relation with these people, they threw themselves on me and violently struck me after completely stripping me. Then they lay me down on a wooden bed to which I was tied. One of the torturers held my head. Another put a rag in my mouth and pinched my nostrils then poured dirty water in my mouth, until the asphyxiation and the loss of consciousness. This technique was renewed on several occasions so much that to lose the voice.

Then they put electric wire on various places of my body, more particularly on my sex and poured cold water. The electric shocks which went through all my body made me jump. The pains were excruciating.

Another torturer hit my feet with a large stick, so much that I did not feel them any more.
After nearly one hour of torments, the torturers took me to my cell. I could not walk any more. My feet were swollen following the violent stick hits. They informed me that if I did not answer their questions, they were going to repeat the torments during all the day.

After more than one month of tortures, I was completely exhausted. I could not support these inhuman acts any more. They threatened me to bring back my wife to the center and to have her undergoing the same tortures, to rape her in front of me and to sodomize me in front of her. I then said to them that I was ready to write all that they wanted and “to acknowledge” all that they wanted to hear out of my mouth, provided that they do not touch with my wife.
Then torture changed its face. They gave me only some spoonfuls of a noisome soup with a small piece of bread. They authorized me to drink only half glass of water per day. They authorized me to go to the toilets at midday and at sunset. I was deprived of water for washing and performing my ablutions for the prayer. I was also authorized to have my shower once per month and lasting less than five minutes for each session. All that unfolded under all kinds of humiliations and insults. They forced me to move around on all fours and they said to me on each occasion that they were the “Gods of Algeria”.

I remained locked up during seven months in this barracks, without news of my family and without them knowing where I was. Many citizens went throuth this place during my stay. They were atrociously tortured and I heard practically each day their cries. Thereafter, I met in Serkadji where I am held, many people who I had seen in these sinister barracks.

The place where I was locked up was made up of 17 small individual cells and two large rooms of detention.
Once, during an interrogation, colonel Hassan took out his gun and said to me : “if you do not say the truth, I kill you and you will rejoin the list of "disappeared" and God knows that we entered a lot of people on this list”.
As when I said to colonel Hassan that I had received Aman of president Bouteflika, he answered me with insults against the president and said to me : “it is we who lead the country and nobody can do as it may without us”.

As we approached our transfer to the barracks of Hydra, the captain Khaled said to me : “We did that with you, because we are not able to read in cofee grounds, and that to be certain that you did not constitute a danger for the safety of the country and that you did not have any contact with the armed groups on the national territory, it was the working method used. We thus take care of the fatherland and the citizen safety” !!!
On August 02, 2003, I was transferred to the barracks of Hydra with eight other detainees. I would quote the names of Mikraz Djamal, Kihal Maâmar, Nekkah Salah, Meghraba Mohamed, Djeddi Amar, Benhania Hassan, Aïssa and Mouhiballah.

We remained in Hydra until the date of September 27, 2003, date of which they made me sign a paper where it was written that “I had been well treated during my stay and that they had not seized anything in my residence”. Then they made me sign, always under duress, a report of interrogation, peppered with confessions extorted under torture. The officer who made me sign these documents was on this day drunk and threatened me with death. He informed me that he had executed several people and that it was not to my interest not to sign the statement. He will also inform me that he was going to take me to the prosecutor and the examining magistrate giving me to understand that the latter appertained to their apparatus and that I had no chance of coming out of prison.

At the time of my arrival to the Abane Ramdane court, I informed the prosecutor that I was going to lodge a complaint against my torturers. He looked at me and asked me if I knew their names. I answered him that I did not know their true names but the pseudonyms which they used and that the one who had brought me back to the court was one of them. He then said to me that it was none of his business and that I had to see the examining magistrate.

When I was presented to the examining magistrate, I informed him of my intention to lodge a complaint against my torturers. He said to me in his turn that he was not concerned and that his role was to question me, but that at the end of the examination, he was going to send me to the prosecutor !!! He did not inform me that I had the right to be assisted by a lawyer. I then remembered the words of the officer who said to me that the magistrates to whom he was going to take me were their, that I was always at their mercy and that I could at any time go back to the barracks of military safety. And that it was useless for me to claim my rights and that only obedience to their orders was the healthiest solution!

Prison of Serkadji.
November 2003