Torture at Guantanamo (Victims: Sassi and Benchellali) [CASE DISMISSED]

Type of liability
Personne physique

Alleged perpetrator(s)
G.W BUSH and others

Nationality of alleged perpetrator(s)
American

Legal classification of crime(s)
Torture and acts of barbarity

Source of the complaint
Victim

Ongoing proceedings
non

Regime
4 - 113 CP

Summary of facts

Sassi and Benchellali, French nationals, were arrested in the context of the operations launched by the United States against the Taliban regime and the Al-Qaeda network, and detained at the Guantanamo Bay camp, a US military base located in Cuba.

On December 2, 2002, the US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, allegedly authorized the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” on Mohammed al-Qahtani, a high-value Guantanamo detainee.

Geoffrey M. allegedly took part in or supervised several interrogation sessions at Guantanamo.

Amnesty International France recalls that everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law.

Legal proceedings

November 14, 2002: the victims and their families filed a complaint with civil party application with the senior investigating judge of the Lyon High Court on charges of “act infringing individual liberty consisting of detention of more than seven days”, “wilful failure to put an end to an unlawful deprivation of liberty” and “unlawful confinement of a person”. 
February 14, 2003: the investigating judge refused to open an investigation. 
In May 2003: the Investigating Chamber upheld the refusal to open an investigation. 
January 4, 2005: the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation quashed the decision and remanded the case to the Investigating Chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal. 
June 1, 2005: the Paris Court of Appeal overturned the order refusing to open an investigation. 
October 6, 2009: the public prosecutor issued a supplementary prosecution submission on charges of “torture and acts of barbarity concomitant with the crimes of arrest, abduction, detention and unlawful confinement without orders from the constituted authorities and outside the cases provided for by law, committed by several persons acting together, with premeditation and with the use or threat of a weapon”. 
In February 2014: following the investigating judge’s refusal to hear Geoffrey M. at the request of the civil parties, the Paris Court of Appeal was seized and overturned this decision, finding that he should have been summoned. 
January 20, 2016: the investigating judge summoned Geoffrey M. to appear, but he did not appear. 
September 18, 2017: the investigating judge issued a dismissal order, invoking immunity from jurisdiction. 
December 19, 2019: on appeal by the civil parties, the Investigating Chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal upheld the dismissal order issued by the investigating judge. 
January 13, 2021: the Criminal Chamber dismissed the civil parties’ appeal. 
In July 2021: the applicants lodged an application with the ECtHR for violation of Article 6 (right to a fair trial), which was to be rejected.