On June 24th 1996, the European Commission of Human Rights ruled the case Ramirez Sanchez v. France (28780/95) was inadmissible (see previous post), based on the “fact” that the abduction was carried out by the Sudanese authority so the Commission was incompetent ratione personae. The Commission also added that the rendition to France by French domestic intelligence agency (DST), was part of a “cooperation” between the French government and the state of Sudan which didn’t amount to a violation of article 5.
On January 10th 2006, the daily newspaper Le Figaro published an interview of an ex-agent of the French domestic intelligence agency on the abduction and rendition of Mr. Ramirez Sanchez. On June 28th 2006, the applicant pressed charges for “abduction” and “sequestration” to the investigating judges of Paris court. On May 3rd 2007, an investigation judge closed the case without opening an investigation. On September 24th 2007, the investigation chamber of the appeal court of Paris confirmed the refusal to open an investigation. On 2008, it was revealed that a CIA agent was also involved in the planning of the abduction and rendition of the applicant.
On February 25th 2009, the applicant filed his case (13019/09) with the European Court. On July 8th 2009, he submitted a brief [fr] arguing a violation of articles 5, 6-1, 13, 17 in conjunction with article 14. The applicant argued that his abduction was carried out by French agents of DST with the help of a local politician with no executive mandate. He added that his abduction and rendition to France were also planned by the CIA and were not the result of a judicial cooperation between States.
On September 28th 2010, case El-Masri (39630/09) was communicated to Macedonia by the 5th section of the Court with detailed questions to be answered within 16 weeks (art.3,5,8,10,13). The case regards the abduction of a German citizen and his rendition to Afghanistan by CIA agents.
Surprisingly, on December 16th 2010, Judge Karel Jungwiert (Czech Republic) of the 5th section of the Court deemed the case Ramirez Sanchez (13019/09) inadmissible. The registrar of the Court informed the applicant that no ground for the decision will be given and that they will destroy all files regarding the case in 1 year (see below). The applicant was represented by Me Coutant-Peyre (Paris).
European Court of Human Rights News 