Report

Bechir
Eddekhily
sahrawi
student and
political
prisoner

Nouchata News, July 2017

Report writen by : Mbarek El Fahimi
Traduction : Ezzarga Moh-Lamin

Full name: El Bechir Eddekhily

Birth date: March, 15th 1996
Birth place: El Aaiun, Western Sahara
Education: Baccalaureate from Ibn Battutta
High School, in experimental science
The Current Situation: Political Prisoner at
Lekhal imprisonment facility, El Aaiun,
Western Sahara (known as Black Prison)

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On March, 16th, 2017 a non violent demonstration
took place on Taha Houssein street in El Aaiun
city ,Western Sahara. The demonstrators enchanted
slogans that proclaimed the Sahrawi people rights
to independence and self-determination and the
release and liberation of the Sahrawi detainees and
prisoners. The participants in the rally were mainly
youth and minors. The demonstration was then
dispersed by the police force who engaged in a raid
of search and detection of the activists, that
resulted in the arrest of the sahrawi student Bechir
Eddekhily.

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Bechir practiced his hobby of photography

Moroccan secret intelligent agents who are

members of the political police unit transported the
Sahrawi student to the security center at the fidtrict
offices. They took him in a TOYOTA Prado. The
inspector Abd Enbi Saghir was in charge of the
unit which carried out the transportation. The
detainee was then put under police custody to be
presented before the investigative magistrate at the
court of appeal in El Aaiun city on March, 18th 2017.
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The investigative magistrate Hicham Boussoula
postponed the case to Wednesday, March, 22nd
2017 in a public hearing session in the court of
appeal in El Aaiun city, Western Sahara. The
investigative magistrate has in addition ordered the
detainee to remain in Lekhal prison.

On Wednesday, March the 22nd, the Sahrawi

student and political detainee Bechir Eddekhily was
presented to trial at the appeal court in El Aaiun
city, with the attendance of his family members and
some of his friend.

The presiding judge verified the detainee's

credentials, and made sure that they fit his exact
identity, then read the charges against the accused.
The charges mainly constituted some accusations
that he caused traffic jam and disturbed it by
putting barricades and burned tires on the main
roads. The charges also included throwing stones
and burning bottles according to the minutes of the
Moroccan police.

Bechir Eddekhily denied all the charges against him

and as well as his his attorney who insisted that his
client was innocent and therefor should be acquitted
of all charges against him due to the lack of
evidence and the nature of the made up case.

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In one hour time, the appeal court issued an
oppressive and unfair verdict, sentencing the
detainee with a year and a half of imprisonment
without examining the allegations made up in the
proceedings. The family members claimed that their
son was subjugated to torture and was coerced to
sign the proceedings, but the court did not consider
their appeal and has issued the verdict on the basis
of the minutes. It is obvious that the court has ruled
in contradiction to the very basics and fundamentals
principles of Moroccan law, namely article one, of
the criminal procedure. Some of the detainees
friends and supporters have confirmed that they
witnessed some police elements patrolling out side
the court. They say that these very elements-
according to trusted confidential sources- are the
ones who made Bechir Eddekhily sign the fabricated
minutes against his will, namely Ahmed Kaya , who
is vice president of the security zone and two other
police officers of the same unit, called Yassine
Barada and Ali Boufry in retaliation of Bechir
Eddekhily's political stand that does not please the
Moroccan authority.

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President of the security zone Ahmed Kaya police officer Yassine Barada

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 police officer Ali Boufry

Mohamed Eddekhily, the detainee's brother

declared in a verbal statement, that the Moroccan
authority have denied the prisoner the right to wear
a "DARRAA", the Saharawi traditional clothing while
he was in prison. He added in the same statement
that the king representative at the appeal court has
declined a complaint from the detainee's family in
which the family demands an investigation into the
torture allegations during police custody. In the
complaint the family said that in their attempt to
know about the indictment against their son, police
refused to receive a copy to the judicial officers. The
family then opted to send the complaint via post
office.
On 17th Apr 2017 the Court of appeal issued Bechir
Eddekhily's judgment with a sentence of four
months in prison.

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complaint from the detainee's family

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 Received of poste office POSTE MAROC

The Moroccan penal procedure code, article 293

stipulates that: confessions under any sort of
coercion are invalid proof...the author of this
violence has to submitt to th sanctions foreseen in
the Penal Code .
In Article 45 : the king's representative is
responsible to make sure that custody procedures
goes well, without delay and in the appropriated
place. He is as well responsible to make sure that
the imprisonment conditions meet humanly
criteria. Article 73 says " the defendant attorney
has the full right to attend the investigation process
and to demand a medical check-up for the
defendant.

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It becomes obvious when we compare what the
Moroccan law stipulates, the criminal code and the
constitution, with the reality on the ground,
especially in Western Sahara, where constant
political and social demonstrations are witnessed
and during which many arbitrary arrests take place,
that the Moroccan judiciary system is an accomplice
of the police as it considers the false made up
minutes signed under coercion by the detainees.
Eddekhily is no exception, as many before him.
We have come to conclude, after this political trial
and many others before it, along with tremendous
amount of previous minutes edited and issued by
Moroccan political police, that, there were many
violations and trespasses of local and international
law. This confirms the fact that this trespasses and
violations occur systematically and constantly
violating both, local and international conventions.
The abuse of power includes harassing minors and
coercing them to sign minutes that accuse and
implicate other innocents, in order to arrest them
and throw them into prison for charges of inciting
violence and disorder.

We found in the Moroccan police minutes, of the

Saharawi political detained student, Bechir
Eddekhily, an incident that proves these practices.
For instance, the minutes state that on December
5th 2016, the minor Sami El Mouedin was arrested
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in El Awdaa neighbourhood, El aaiun city, Western
Sahara. Then, the detainee was transported to the
security center to be presented to the the kings
representative in the court of appeal in the same
city. The minutes state that Sami El Mouedin had
signed a minute in which he confessed that he and
Bechir Eddekhily are friends and the were
together in a protest in which they stoned Moroccan
security elements and that they also threw burning
bottles, according to the minutes text.

We interviewed the minor Sami El Mouedin. In the

interview, he said that a police patrol unit arrested
him on December 5th 2016 when he was walking
around in El Awdaa neighborhood, El Aaiun city,
Western Sahara. He was then taken to the police
center down town. There, some police elements in a
plainclothes made him sign a minute, but he did not
now it's content. He added that some political police
agents also coerced him to claim that he and Bechir
Eddekhily are friends and that they were together
during events that took place in El Awdaa
neighborhood on December 5th 2016, the same
date of his arrest. The interview was audio-visually
recorded.

In the Judicial minutes it is said that the political

police let him make a phone call to his father
immediately after his arrest in response of his wish
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to talk to one of his relatives. Bechir's family has
denied this statement as false and not true since
the family did not know about the arrest of their son
until March 17th 2017 and as he was put to custody.
They challenge the authority to prove this claim
presenting the phone call records and making them
available to the public, but they won't do it -says the
family- because the call simply did not take place.

This is a clear evidence that Moroccan police did not

comply with the law especially article 67 that says:
the judiciary police officer has to inform the family
of the detainee immediately after the decision of his
custody is issued by any means.

In the judiciary minutes, page 1 states that Bechir

Eddekhily's has confessed that: " I had an
experience of brawl and beating, but I had never
served punitive sentence." To our surprise, it did not
mention any victim of Bechir Eddekhily's alleged
beating and brawl. His sister has confirmed on a
phone call that her brother had never beaten or
violently attacked any one.

All evidences, disconformity and contradictions in

the judiciary minutes prove that Bechir Eddekhilys
detention is politically motivated like many other
cases of systematic practices of arrests and
imprisonment by Moroccan authorities in Western
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Sahara cities after any protest or demonstration that
calls for Western Sahara's independence. This
modus operandi is to silence these voices that
oppose Moroccan's occupation of Western Sahara.

nuchataa@gmail.com

Red de Activistas /
@nochatanews

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