Ahmed Cherbi, abducted and tortured in 2002 to confirm the official version of the assassination of Lounès Matoub
Observatory on Human Rights in Algeria (Observatoire des droits de l´homme en Algérie- ODHA) ), February 2005.
I was working at a car park near the hospital in Tizi-Ouzou. On 27 February 2002, I saw a car approaching. My colleague, who was working with me, saw three cars. Two men in plain civilian clothes got out and started walking towards me. Both of them grab me by the arms and order me to come with them. At this time I don’t know who these men are: are they policemen, gendarmes, men from the security police? They didn’t say anything else to me, they didn’t tell me that I was under arrest. They didn’t even ask me if I was Mr Cherbi. They brought me to the car, put a black bag over my head and handcuffed me. They tried to calm me down: ”Don’t worry Mohamed, you have to be honest with us, you can feel secure with us, nothing will happen to you.” I thought I was being arrested because of the incidents in Kabylia, which I had taken part in.
Where I worked was not far from the military sector and the central police station. The trip only lasted a few minutes. Actually, five minutes after the arrest I was in an office. I thought I was in the central station. Someone removed the hood from my head. The three men who had arrested me were present in the room. One of them is called Kader, he is from Ain.Defla. He’s an agent of the DRS, and it was he who tortured me.
A man entered with a thick document in his hands. He closed the door behind him and that is when I saw military combat clothes hanging behind the door. I understood that I was in the military sector.
The man who entered said, facing me: ”Be with us, come with us, do not be afraid”. I answered that I had not done anything, that I am working, that is all. He answered: “I know that you haven’t done anything, but be honest with us, be a man, don’t worry.” At this point they still had not told me that I was under arrest. They took off my clothes until I was completely naked and put me like that in a very small cell. They left me for three hours completely naked, then Kader came and gave me my clothes back. Then they took me back to a certain Nahal Rachid’s office (it’s only afterwards that I get to know his name). They showed me small videocassettes and told me: ”These are cassettes containing Matoub, do you want to watch them?” I answered: ”what should I do with them?” He says: “I’m going to send you to Algiers, you have work to do with the people of Algiers, be a man. If you cooperate with them, they will let you go and you can return to your work.” I repeated that I hadn’t done anything and that I wanted to go home. Anyway, there was nothing I could do, they decided to bring me to Algiers. They brought me back to the cell where I was locked in for three days. They didn’t give me anything to eat or drink. It wasn’t until Saturday morning that Kader took me out. He blindfolded my eyes, but I could see a little upwards and a little downwards. When he became aware of that, he put a black bag over my head.
They took me to a black car. They were four men. I sat in the back seat between two men, who covered me in jackets so I would not be visible from the outside. I thought they would take me to Algiers, but I came to Blida.
In reality I am in Blida CTRI in Haouch Chnou. They took me into a room and started grilling me. Colonel M’henna Djebbar was there. At this moment I didn’t know who this officer was. I will tell later on how I found out that it was him. He wanted me to confess that I had witnessed the execution of Lounès Matoub. The military showed me photos of five persons: Medjnoun, Chenoui, Boudjelah, Moufouk, Djebriri Djamel – two were imprisoned and the others were killed. They wanted me to say that my father and I were at the place of execution and that at 13.13 we heard shooting and saw these five people shoot Matoub. I had never met Chenoui, I saw him for the first time in prison later. I said I couldn’t report people that I didn’t know at all, I couldn’t give a false testimony. They stated that my father had told this version. At that time I was under age. But I couldn’t say such a thing, for in that case, how could I justify that I hadn’t reported this to the public authorities before?
Matoub was killed in June 1998, now it was April 2002. They threatened me: “You know that people who enter this place, seldom get out”. I answered that I’d rather die than lie. They took me to a cell, where I stayed for about a week to ten days without getting out. The cell was very small, I couldn’t stretch out, and it was dripping from the roof. It was unbearable.
Every morning around six o clock, they took me out to go to the toilet, which was extremely dirty. I only had permission to stay for 1 to 5 minutes, handcuffed.
There were cells next to mine. And I know there were prisoners there. We couldn’t talk to each other, but we demonstrated by hitting the handcuffs against the wall, really to strengthen each other. One day everyone was taken away, I don’t know where. I stayed in prison alone but was soon taken to the office. Djebbar was there, without uniform. Another man without uniform was there to, and I found out that he was a representative from RCD, Noureddine Ait-Hammouda, but at that moment I had no idea who he was. He spoke to me in Kabylian: ”Why don’t you say what they tell you to say, you know that the people who enter this place, don’t get out. If you want to get out, you tell them what they want you to say, leave your testimony, there are journalists here, you talk to them and get them to understand, they will retell what you have told them. You will be on trial, and you will say the same thing to them and nothing will happen to you. Then they will give you what you wish. If you want a visa they will give you that, if you want a house they will give you that, everything you want, you will get”. I answered him: “Why are you asking me to do this? We are both Kabylian, help me to get out of here”. He looked at me: “You will not get out of here until you say what they want you to say, or else you will not get out of here”. And he left.
They brought me back to a cell. Three days later, in the middle of the night, they came to get me, and said there was a concert, and I was to be taken there. They took me to a big room. There was construction material, computers, a wooden ladder. I didn’t know it was a chamber of torture. They tied me to the ladder and let me fall, in one direction, and the other, they repeated this at least four or five times. Then they tied my hands and pushed my head down into a big pool filled with nauseous water that tasted of soap. They kept doing this for an hour. The water came in to my ears. I was about to drown, I thought I couldn’t handle it. The men torturing me were called Babay, Mounir and Zaatout. When they bought me back to the cell, every sound was like an explosion in my ears. The roof was dripping, and each drop of water was a shock to my ears. I closed my ears with my both hands, but it was unbearable.
The next day, they took me out of the cell at 9 pm and I was taken to the same room. There were three men there, dressed in military uniforms and not wearing hoods. This time they beat me with thick sticks and fists all over my body. Babay said to me:” My wife is giving birth today and thanks to you I can’t be with her, I will flay you!” They returned to the pool torture. Then they took me back to the cell. I was ill, unable to get up. At lunchtime, and in the evening, they gave me some bread, nothing more.
Now 17 days had passed since I had come to them and they took me to a room with couches. A female doctor was there, she gave me an injection. Djebbar was there. The following day they took me to a cell, two square meters in size. At least I could stretch out, walk around a little, and there was a dirty military blanket on the floor. In the wall there was at least a little crack, that allowed me to look out. I saw the forest, and I heard the railroad. A couple of hours after my transfer to this cell, they led a pipe into the cell, diagonally, through a small opening that let in some light. Smoke streamed into the cell, and I hallucinated even though I was convinced that it was for real. I saw my mother, my father, myself in Tizi, in Algiers. I was convinced that what was happening to me, was really happening. Only several hours later, I realized where I was – I couldn’t believe it, I was so convinced that what I had hallucinated was true. The following day when they took me out of the cell, they introduced me to Djebbar. The doctor came and gave me another injection and when I was taken back to my cell they let the smoke stream in again. I saw myself, with my mother, my father, my cousins, by the river, I was everywhere. On the pipe there was a little microphone. I don’t know if I talked in this condition. They took me back to Noureddin Ait-Hammouda again, Djebbar was there too. In the room there were 2 journalists and a camera.
I told them I wanted to leave. “I have been here for 30 days now, I can’t make a false testimony, why don’t you let me leave?” They answered: ”Only you and your father can do this. And you haven’t been here for 30 days, you have been here for a week, do you count days and nights or what? And you’re still in shape!” Ait-Hammouda turned to me and said in Kabylian: “I told you so. If you had testified, if you had recorded the cassette they would have let you go home. You don’t have to be afraid, they will contact people from Tizi-Ouzou, you will work with them.” I refused and they brought me back to the cell, where they gave me a new session of the gas. I didn’t know what was happening to me, I had the feeling that I no longer had a free will.
Opposite from my cell there was a room, where there were military people. Some of them gave me a glass of milk or coca-cola sometimes. One said to me: ”You are at the security police in Haouch Chnou in Blida. I will give you my number and when you get out you can call me. People who come in here don’t come out, but if you get out of here someday, contact me.” I lost his phone number and I don’t remember his first name.
Still, I was in a bad condition, I don’t know if it was the effect of the injection or the smoke, but I did what they told me to do, they told me to undress, to stand up, to sit down, I did that without resistance. I was like in a bad condition.
About two days later they let me go into a room where there was a curtain with a chair in front of it. Djebbar and two journalists were present. One of the men who called himself Mohammed told me what I should do. They explained to me that they would record two cassettes, one in Arabic, and one in Kabylian.
And he told me exactly what I should say and threatened me that I wouldn’t get out of there if I did the opposite.
One of the journalists began: “The army forces have announced the arrest of the suspect Ahmed Charbi. He admits the following…”. And I was the one who should talk. I talked without problem: “Yes, I was with my father in Tala Bounane, we collected rocks, on our land, when we heard firing. When we turned around, we saw that Matoub had been killed, and five more people that we could identify: Medjnoun, Chenoui, Boudjelah, Moufouk, Djebiri Djamel.”
Then the journalists asked me questions: “Why didn’t you go to the police station to report the guilty people?” I answered: ”I was afraid because my father had forbidden me to do that.”
Then the journalist commented: ”After four years of investigation the security forces found witnesses who can strengthen the suspect’s guilt.” This was just a manouver to get the suspicions away from the army, and put the blame and responsibility for the murder of Lounès Matoub onto the terrorists.
So I recorded the cassettes in Arabic and Kabylian. It was the man called Mohammed who told me what to say. There were two other military men there too, who pressured me. When the recording was finished they returned me to the cell. And that is when Ait-Hammouda came and congratulated me and gave me a chocolate bar. He advised me to say the same thing in the court. By that time I no longer knew what a court was, I didn’t know what a general prosecutor or a judge was.
I ask myself if I was in my normal condition when I did this recording. I was fully aware of the moment, but I am surprised that I did as I had been commanded, without resisting, nor refusing. That is what makes me think that I was drugged by some substance, either the injection, or the smoke.
After three or four days I heard my father’s voice. In the area around the hole where the military looked into the cell, there was a small narrow opening, that allowed me to look out into the corridor next to me, and I saw my father. He was in a miserable condition, all his clothes were torn apart, he was crying. I couldn’t believe what I saw. They locked him up in a cell opposite mine for ten minutes, and then took him away. My father was arrested a month after me, March the 25th. He had reported my disappearance to the police station. My father had looked for me everywhere. When I didn’t show up, a friend I worked with went to the police station, to tell them that I had been taken away by their men and if something happened to me the security police should be held responsible. That same afternoon he was arrested and threatened to say that he had seen nothing.
On March 25 a car stopped by my father. A man without uniform came forward to him and asked if he was looking for his son. He answered yes and the unknown man said to him that I was with them. He offered to take him to see me. And that’s how he ended up in the military area in Tizi-Ouzou. He was taken away in the middle of the centre of the city. He was locked up for eight days in a container in Tadmats military area on the way to Algiers. There he was tortured, they set dogs on him, and he also got that hallucinating smoke.
But he saw hell. He saw a scene, where they cut my throat in front of him. After arriving in Blida, after spending eight days in that container, Djebbar spoke to him, and my father asked him why I had been killed. Djebbar answered that I wasn’t dead, that I was with them. They took him to the room with the computers. They took me there too. When he saw me he stuttered and affirmed that I wasn’t his son. “My son is dead, don’t come closer to me.” They tortured me in front of my father, I can’t tell what they did. And to see my father in this condition gave me a big shock. They took me back to the cell and a bit later I asked the guard if I could see my father, who was sitting in the cell next to mine, just for five minutes. He gave me permission to do that. I talked to him and I convinced him that I was his son. He told me that our whole family had been massacred. He watched it all happen. I told him to obey their orders if he wanted to get out alive. They took him to an office where Djabbar was and he testified in the same way I did.
The day before our departure I saw Djebbar, who told me that we should leave the following day, and that I should only stay in prison for three days, and then I would come before the law. I should just repeat what I had said earlier. That was: that I had seen Medjoun and Chenoui. They made me sign the official report (PV) in Arabic. My father signed too. They took us for a medical examination. As I was going in to the examination room, the female doctor saw me and said. “That one, not long ago, I saw him with colonel Djebbar”. And that’s how I understood that the man I had met several times, especially together with Ait-Hammouda, was M’henna Djebbar. They later took me out, and brought my father in.
The April 6th we left Blida together to go to Tizi-Ouzou. We sat in an armoured car. In each car, there were three policemen, armed to their teeth. You could believe they were transporting Hassan Hattab! At the exit from Blida, they took our blindfolds off. I was extremely shocked, I saw another world, people, cars, it was like a movie.
In Tizi-Ouzou we were directly introduced to the general prosecutor. He asked me why I hadn’t confirmed earlier that I had seen Matoubs being killed. I answered that I had been too young, that my father had given me the advice not to talk at all. Then we were to meet the examining prosecutor. My father had already been questioned by the prosecutor, and he told me that when we left Kabylia, I should refuse to talk, without the presence of a lawyer.
I asked the examining prosecutor whether, if I had a lawyer present, that would change anything, if it could send me to prison. He answered me that with or without lawyer, I would go to prison. So I then decided not to talk, unless a lawyer was present. He had the recorded cassettes in his office.
The policemen from SM took us to prison. I expected a place similar to Haouch Chnou in Blida. I asked them about how one could behave, so as not to get beaten up in prison. Well there, it was known that it was closed. They put us in two cells and we could talk all night, me and my father. He again told me that our whole family had been shot, and I believed him. Even then I wasn’t in my normal state of mind, by that moment it was like I didn’t care about the death of my relatives. I said to myself several times that my father must have been wrong, maybe our family were still alive, and sometimes I believed it. And I was also convinced that I was to be released in three days like colonel Djebbar had affirmed.
The following day they took us to a big cell. There were people I knew. I had to say, that in that very moment, our family knew nothing about us, not what had happened to me, or to my father. They were very anxious, the rest of the village were hiding out of fear from six o’clock every night, because they didn’t want to be taken away by the police. My father was moved to another building, I was in a cell with 60-65 prisoners. The prisoners were very nice to me as soon as they knew that I had been arrested for the Matoub issue. They were nice, they got me to relate things in my interest. That was because no one believed the official version, and that everyone knew that me and my father were victims of a scheme.
I didn’t even have to tell my whole story, everyone had compassion for my story. I asked myself all the time, what could have happened to my family, I talked to others about it. One of the prisoners was to be released a few days later. He should visit my mother right away. She and my brothers were alive. And for them this visit would be very important, because they would finally know the whereabouts of me and my father. Later on they came to visit us.
Three times they introduced me to the examining judge, Abbassi Mohamed, the sixth of
April 6th 2002, May 18th, and June 16th. I was under suspicion of “not telling about the murder of Lounès Matoub”. When I told him that I had been locked up for 40 days, tortured and forced to state a false testimony, he told me to not say this, but to repeat what the SM policemen demanded from me. He tried to convince me that I was young, and if I didn’t give a false testimony, I would go to prison for 10 years. I decided not testify falsely.
I had to change my lawyer, because the one who was going to defend me also tried to make me give false testimony. Finally, I was temporarily released. I returned to my work, but was hiding. I was living in a block where the police never came, because of the events in Kabylia. I very seldom visited my mother in order not to put myself in danger.
Our trial was supposed to take place on November 10th 2003. The day before, I went to visit my lawyer. He no longer wanted to handle my case because the judge had changed his mind and he feared that I and my father would face long sentences in jail. He advised us to postpone the trial. I was finally in court on March 21st 2004. I told what had happened: how they took me away, the torture, the false testimonies. On top of that, neither me nor my father were criminals. I had witnesses that I had been at work. I was released but sadly enough my father was sentenced to three years in prison. This even though at the time he had been working in the hospital, and his colleagues and superiors testified that he had been in the hospital at the time of the murder. But one of us had to be convicted, because if not, all of their scheme about the Lounès Matoub murder would fail. And without this lie, maybe they would even have to release the two suspects, Chenoui and Medjnoun.
Two weeks after the trial I left the country. I had already earlier applied for a visa and happily I got it very fast. I live in France now.
