Press release of the Inter-Parliamentary Union
Geneva, 13 September 2000
N° 101

Geneva: The Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) has learnt with consternation that the State Security Court of Guinea, an emergency court, has sentenced Mr. Alpha Condé and several of his co-defendants to up to five years' imprisonment. The IPU observers sent to the trial came to believe beyond the shadow of a doubt that Mr. Condé and some of his co-defendants had been convicted in a trial which entirely failed to meet the standards for a fair trial defined by the international treaties ratified by Guinea.

For two years, the Committee on the Human Rights of parliamentarians has been examining the case of the ex-candidate to the Presidency of the Republic of Guinea, who ran against the current President, General Lansana Conté in 1998. Alpha Condé was arrested in December 1998, the day after the presidential election, without any lifting of his parliamentary immunity. At the time, he was charged with attempting to leave the country illegally and assaulting police officers at the time of his arrest. During the preliminary investigation, the public prosecutor's office sought to prove, on the basis of some twenty testimonies, that a breach of State security had occurred.

An IPU on-site mission in January 2000 revealed grave violations of the Code of Penal Procedure and its conclusions gave the Inter-Parliamentary Union grounds to fear that the proceedings brought against Mr. Alpha Condé were not based on any valid legal arguments and to call for his immediate release. The Committee then sent observers to the trial and will submit their report to the IPU Council at the 104th Inter-Parliamentary Conference in Jakarta (15-21 October 2000).

In particular, the observers noted that political authorities intervened in all aspects of the trial: the President stated publicly that the defendants were guilty; testimony for the prosecution was heard even though convincing arguments were put forward to say that it had been obtained through torture, although its lack of reliability was invoked to acquit other defendants. Members of the State Security Court were also seen to display such partiality that one judge was dismissed and replaced by his substitute because he had threatened a lawyer who was cross-examining a witness for the prosecution.

The observers also noted that the defence was systematically harassed at every stage of the trial, from the preliminary investigation, when access to the file was refused, to the hearings (pressure on the defence counsel, no pay for court-appointed lawyers, summons to appear before the Minister of Justice, threats of arrest to keep a lawyer from pleading). The debates were said to be subject to a de facto lack of publicity, as access to the court room required permission from the political authorities, the streets leading to the court were blocked off on days when hearings were held, the room was full of uniformed or plain clothes security officials, TV coverage of the trial was biased (oral arguments were heard for the prosecution but not the defence), and the international press was barred from the hearings.

The principle of equality of arms for the defence and the prosecution was also not respected, as the court, for example, refused to hear certain witnesses for the defence while hearing all witnesses for the prosecution. Lawyers were not treated on an equal basis, as defence counsel was deprived of all the material facilities made available to the lawyers for the prosecution.

Lastly, the IPU observers were seriously preoccupied by the absence of guarantees of judicial recourse, as the only form of appeal foreseen by the law has to be lodged with the Supreme Court, which is currently presided over by the Prime Minister.

Established in 1889, the IPU is the oldest of the multilateral political organisations. It is based in Geneva and currently has 138 affiliated national parliaments and 5 associated regional parliamentary assemblies. It also has a Liaison Office with the United Nations in New York. Established in 1976, the Committee, which meets in camera, is composed of five members of Parliament: Mr. François Autain (France, President), Mr. Hilarion Etong (Cameroon, Vice-President), Mr. Juan Pablo Letelier (Chile), Mr. Mahinda Samarasinghe (Sri Lanka) and Mrs. Maria Grazia Daniele Galdi (Italy).