SAHARA PRESS SERVICE

Goulimine, (southern Morocco) 08/05/2004 (SPS) The Saharawi citizen, Chuoichi Slimane, was murdered in the 30th of April in the brigade of Royal Gendarmerie in Goulimine because of tortures he was subjected to, announced AFAPREDESA in a communiqué.

The victim who went to the brigade to inform about the loss of his authorised hunting carbine, was summoned back later by the same gendarmes, after two days investigation during which all the victim's family (wife, children and sister) were brutalised in their own home, while he was looking after his herd of goats.

The late Slimane was summoned to the gendarmerie brigade from where he got out in agony on a stretcher to die between the hands of the local doctor.

The body of the victim was transferred to Casablanca to a coroner for autopsy, after a demonstration organised by the inhabitants of the city of the victim calling for an investigation on the incident.
 
His family addressed a letter to the President of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) and the death's announcement was publicised by Moroccan newspaper, AS-SABAH, with the victim's picture, it was indicated.

In September 2003, the Royal Gendarme had arrested and brutally tortured in the same oasis (south-east of Goulimime), Mr. Saber Tamdaoui ould Mohamed Lembarek, 30 years old, before a local court sentenced him to two years imprisonment, been accused of aggression against an employee of the authority.

Tighmert, the biggest oasis of Oued Noun (a southern region of Morocco), is positioned on a phreatic slick whose importance was recently known and which belongs to Saharawi citizens in the region. This oasis became the Eldorado of Moroccan agricultural and property investors.

It should be mentioned that Saber's brother is one of the rare persons to dare saying in front of Minurso's identification commission that the information Moroccan authorities presented on him were false. (SPS)

010/090/666/TRD 081316 May 04 SPS