ECtHR orders Greece to compensate torture victim

17 January 2012 - The European Court of Human Rights has found that Greek coastguards tortured Necati Zontul, a British/Turkish dual national, when he was raped in detention at the port of Chania, Crete, in 2001. It ordered Greece to pay him €50,000 in compensation.

The judgment in Zontul v. Greece confirmed that Greece breached Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (prohibition of torture) on account of the actions of the coastguards as well as the failures of the Greek authorities in the internal investigations and the criminal proceedings against the officials. The Court considered that the rape of a detainee by an official of the State was an especially grave and abhorrent form of ill-treatment, amounting to torture in this case.

Necati, a client of REDRESS, was in a boat travelling to Italy when it was intercepted by the Greek Coastguard and towed to Hania Harbour in Crete. Once there, the migrant detainees were kept in poor conditions of detention, with severe overcrowding and limited access to basic amenities. A coastguard trapped Necati in the toilets and forced him to remove his clothes. He then raped him with a truncheon.

The Greek authorities were heavily criticised for their internal investigation of the incident, where they falsified the Applicant's evidence, recording the rape as a "slap" and "use of psychological violence". The Court also found that the criminal penalty imposed on the perpetrator of the rape, a suspended sentence commuted to a small fine, was insufficient.

Click HERE for the ECtHR's decision (in French).

Click HERE for the Court's English summary.

Click HERE to read our press release.

Click HERE to find more information about the case.

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Europe's highest Court considers REDRESS's submissions in first rendition case

16 May 2012 - The European Court of Human Rights today heard the first case involving a victim of the CIA rendition program. The Grand Chamber of the ECtHR heard detailed evidence of Macedonia’s alleged central role in Khaled El-Masri’s illegal detention, torture and extraordinary rendition to Afghanistan more than eight years ago.

El-Masri is represented at the hearing by a team of lawyers from the Open Society Justice Initiative. REDRESS submitted observations as a third party on international law guaranteeing the rights of victims of extraordinary rendition to an investigation, remedy and reparation, including the disclosure of the truth of what happened. It also provided the Court with an expert report on how the provision of a remedy, and identifying the perpetrators, can be crucial to victims' psychological recovery.

The Grand Chamber will now consider the case, before delivering its judgment later in the year.

Click HERE to find all our submissions to the ECtHR

Click HERE to read our press release

Click HERE to watch the hearing

Click HERE to wath Carla Ferstman, director of REDRESS, on Al Jazeera

For more information, contact Eva Sanchis, Communications Officer, on +44(0)2077931777 and eva@redress.org 

Photo by Joy Garnett.

REDRESS' concerns over proposed secrecy provisions are shared by UK Human Rights Committee