Photo : MP Jeremy Corbyn deposing his letter at the Moroccan embassy, Friday 16 December 2011
Lalla Joumala Alaoui
Ambassador of his Majesty the King of Morocco
To the Court of St James
EMBASSY OF THE KINGDOM OF MOROCCO
49 Queen’s Gate Gardens
London
SW7 5NE
15 December 2011
Your Excellency,
We are writing to express our deep dismay at the conviction and sentence of Ali Aarrass on 24 November for alleged involvement in terrorist activity, following a flagrantly unfair trial procedure, in which the only evidence was statements alleged to have been obtained by torture.
Grave concerns were expressed before the trial for the integrity of the proceedings, for the following reasons:
• The allegations forming the basis of the indictment were exhaustively investigated for two years by Spanish examining magistrate Baltasar Garzón, who found no case to answer;
• The allegations were founded solely on statements allegedly obtained by torture, including a confession extracted during Mr Aarrass’ fourteen-day incommunicado detention following his extradition in December 2010, but the complaints of torture have never been investigated;
• No independent material or forensic evidence implicating him was ever found despite strenuous efforts by the investigating authorities;
• Police notes presented to the judge contained serious and unexplained discrepancies and alterations, giving rise to suspicion of fabrication and cover-up;
• Mr Aarrass allegedly confessed in Arabic, which he does not speak.
Despite these grave concerns, expressed by international human rights bodies and eminent individuals, all preliminary objections were swept aside and the trial took place on 24 November before three judges of the Rabat Court of Appeal sitting in Salé. After hearing the lawyers’ submissions, the judges took barely an hour to convict Mr Aarrass. They did not even wait for his lawyers or interpreter to return to court before pronouncing their verdict and sentencing Mr Aarrass, who had to wait for their return to understand what had happened.
Such a cruel travesty of justice does untold harm to the international reputation of Morocco, conveying the message that the interests of justice and the protection of fundamental rights and human dignify are of little or no importance and that the judiciary does the bidding of the police.
We request that, in order to demonstrate its commitment to the rule of law, your government urgently reviews the judicial and police actions in this case and investigates the complaints of torture, and releases Mr Aarrass pending the outcome of such review and investigation.
Yours sincerely,
Jeremy Corbyn MP
on behalf of himself and the following organisations and individuals:
Bar Human Rights Committee
Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers
Helen Bamber OBE, Clinical Director, Helen Bamber Foundation
Tony Bunyan, Statewatch
Liz Fekete, Executive Director, Institute of Race Relations
Professor Penny Green, International State Crimes Initiative, Kings College
Asim Qureshi, Executive Director, CagePrisoners
Estella Schmid, Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC)
Ali Naseem Bajwa QC
Sir Geoffrey Bindman QC
Anthony Gifford QC
John Hendy QC
Stephen Knafler QC
Ian Macdonald QC
Michael Mansfield QC
Hugh Southey QC
Navtej Ahluwalia, barrister
Helen Curtis, barrister
Liz Davies, barrister
Helen Foot, barrister
Michael House, barrister
Anya Lewis, barrister
Piers Mostyn, barrister
Beatrice Prevatt, barrister
Catherine Rayner, barrister
Sadat Sayeed, barrister
Anthony Vaughan, barrister
Pete Weatherby, barrister
Frances Webber, barrister
Amanda Weston, barrister
Jo Wilding, barrister
Marc Willers, barrister
