Freedom for President Sambi with the first lawyer in defend the oppressed President Ahmed Sambi, the former President of the Republic of the Comoros
At the invitation and organization of the Global Gathering In Support Of The Choice Of Resistance, a meeting was held under the title of freedom for President Sambi with the first lawyer in defend the oppressed President Ahmed Sambi, the former President of the Republic of the Comoros, on Thursday afternoon at 5 o’clock on February 2, 23.
A group of jurists, judiciary and lawyers participated in it in attendance at the headquarters of the Gathering, and online through Zoom, and among the participants were the daughter of President Sambi, lawyers, and judges from the Republic of the Comoros, in addition to the coordinators and friends of the Gathering from most countries in the world.
Dr. Yehya Ghaddar, Secretary General of the Global Gathering in Support of the Choice of Resistance welcomed all who have accepted the invitation among the participants in attendance here at the Gathering’s headquarters and via Zoom, especially our guest, Dr. Yan Fermon, Secretary General of the Association of International Democratic Jurists.
Dr. Ghaddar’s speech went as follows:
“The Global Gathering in Support of the Choice of Resistance has taken upon itself since its founding and in its long struggle path and volunteered for the task of defending truth and striving to spread justice and law, in defense of justice and the equal rights of people before God Almighty and before the judiciary wherever it may be.
We meet today to shed light on the just cause of an Arab Islamic fighter who was at the forefront of the ranks of defenders of Palestine, those who reject normalization, fiercely oppose external domination of the countries and peoples of the region and their nations, and reject conspiracies, aggressions, and unjust and aggressive wars.
The oppressed President Sambi, the former President of the Republic of the Comoros, fell under blatant aggression and a victim of fraud, fabrications and political trial, in response to external pressures and as a punishment for his clean hand and achievements, his refusal to normalize and give up the right of the Palestinian people to their land and sovereignty, and his refusal to turn the Comoros into a base of aggression against Arabs and Muslims.
And because of his achievements and his patriotic, national and Islamic positions, an unjust political trial was held for him in form and content and in falsifying and fabricating charges.
Solidarity with President Sambi is like solidarity with the male and female prisoners of the heroic Palestinian people, who today, in their uprising, are engaged in a powerful battle against the usurper occupation authorities of the temporary and vanishing entity.
The issue of freedom, justice and right of humans is an issue that God Almighty commanded, the Books of Heaven, the Bill of Human Rights, and the right of human beings to fair and impartial litigation.
Welcome, gentlemen, attendees and participants via Zoom. We listen to the true and accurate account of President Sambi’s case and what international law says about it. It is presented by the first defense lawyer for President Sambi, Dr. Jan Fermon, who has a long experience in the field of judiciary and litigation and in the corridors of national and international courts. The corridors of courts in the world have witnessed him defending Resistors, fighters and right holders in the face of the courts of politics, revenge and forgery.
And after him, the academic Dr. Hassan Jouni, the official of the International Law Committee in the Gathering, who also participated in defending President Sambi in the Comoros from the angle of international law, will present to us the case.
Then Dr. Jan Forman spoke and said;
“Thank you Mr. secretary general and the gathering for giving the defense team the opportunity to speak to you today to share some facts about the case of President Sambi.
We are currently preparing a memorandum to inform governments and human rights institutions about the injustice President Sambi is enduring.
The title of the memorandum is “the life sentence of Ahmad Sambi: conviction of violation resulting from an unfair trial and conducted before an illegal court”.
President Sambi was president from 2006 till 2011. He decided during his term to set up a program of Comorian passports for UAE citizens. His program was an economic citizenship for international passports for the Buduns living in the UAE. Many countries do this program like Dominican Republic, Spain, France and Malta. If one meets some economic requirements, then you are eligible to apply for this passport. It is a perfectly normal and legal program.
After his term, the new government in Comoros, which had a hostile attitude for international policies conducted by president Sambi, this new administration started maneuvering against him and spreading rumors about his program. As a result, an inquiry was formed to investigate the program.
I want you to remember this name, Dul Kamal, he is the head of this inquiry. Dul Kamal published a report on behalf of the investigation commission that included serious accusations. Three other members of the same commission said that they did not agree with the report and that this was not the report they had agreed upon while working in the commission. Dul Kamal was at that time very close to the new president of Comoros. Dul Kamal is currently the foreign minister of the Comoros Islands.
So, we had a false irregular report with unsubstantiated accusations. President sambi defended himself but was arrested on the order of the minister of interior. Normally a judge arrests somebody and not a minister. After sometime, a judicial inquiry started against him Sambi and lasted for 4 years. Sambi remained in detention for 4 years despite the fact that Comoros laws state that he should have remained for 1 year only. His case now amounts to arbitrary detention. We are currently working on raising his arbitrary detention to the UN human rights council and the African Union.
After the false report was published, a fake investigation started. A judge pretended to conduct investigation but no evidence was found in the file. The only evidence was only the false report. Not one single piece of other evidence was found. So we are looking at a fake report and a fake investigation.
Under Comoros law, at the end of an investigation, the judge should decide if the suspect should stand trial or not. He has to take a decision called “ordonnance”, which is a decision explaining why someone should be put on trial.
We were surprised because in September 2022, the decision for president Sambi to stand trial was made public and the judge that pretended to conduct this decision was not the first judge assigned for this matter. The first judge disappeared and somebody else stepped in, a judge who have never worked on the case before.
Here in my hands in the ordonnance, it looks impressive but the 1st page is the fake report. The second part is a strange decision by the new judge that states that in the constitution of Comoros there exists a crime called high treason, but that crime is not define, it is only mentioned. So, it does not state when one would be defined as a traitor. So, the judge decided that he will make a definition and then he himself defined what he thinks high treason should be. According to law, a crime should be defined by law and not by a judge. This is absolutely illegal and contrary to whole series of provisions of international law.
The constitution of Comoros says high treason should be judged by the high court of justice, and that court does not even exist in Comoros. So, the judge says since we have no high court of justice we then send this case before the state security court.
But what is very interesting, a presidential decree number 2164 was issued in 2020 that enabled a law voted by parliament to abolish the state security court and the office of prosecutor known as a commissioner of the government. So, the court, which the judge wants to send the case to, is already abolished by law. So now we have a crime not defined by law, judged by a court that does not even exist.
We took a deeper look at the law of 1981 which had established a state security court because although the people who pretended to be a court are all fake, but we still wanted to look to the legality of it at its date of establishment. The law says, a state security court should have 1 professional judge and 4 jurors, 2 of them appointed by a presidential decree to sit on the court and another 2 should be appointed on the demand of the parliament. And that was not the case here.
We then asked about the documents of this court. These documents showed that this court was appointed through a decision of a minister and no trace of any proposal from parliament was found.
When I tried to raise this point in court, and there is a video on YouTube that shows this moment, the judge shouted louder than me and stopped me from talking.
In summary, we have a fake report with a fake judge and a fake accusation with a fake decision to send President Sambi to trial for a crime that does not exist according to Comoros constitution. I have seen nothing worse than that in my career.
Most importantly, not only the trial was completely irregular, but also there exist interesting information published only 2 days before trial of President Sambi began on the 21st of December.
A man of Syrian nationality, his name is Bashar Kiwan, published a conversation he had with Msadiye, who is in fact the minister of agriculture in Comoros. On the 3rd of November conversation started with a message to Bashar saying: “do you agree to meet us ministers and the head of state who will come to Paris so you can give a testimony against president Sambi?”
I would like to read some phrases of the messages between Mr Bashar and Msadiye. “Hello Mr. kiwan, the President wants to see when he is in Paris. If you agree to testify against Sambi you will get amnesty.”
Bashar Replies: ” I am free to meet Mr. Azali [the President] but you should understand that I cannot make a false statement.”
Msadiye replies: “Mr. Kiwan, Sambi will be judged for high treason with or without your statement, but you can only avoid prison if you give your statement.”
Bashar then replies: “Mr. Minister, I cannot be part of your plot. Do whatever you want but without my statement. Mr. Sambi is a big man and is not corrupt.”
We do not know what the accusation against Kiwan is but he always says I will not give a false statement against Sambi. So ,this minister says he represents the current president of Comoros, who wants to meet an individual to ask him to make a false statement.
We are used to seeing such actions made by an agent but here we have directly the state president and a minister are doing it.
Even though Bashar published this conversation, and the mobile number was indeed the number of the minister of agriculture, and despite the fact that this conversation was published 2 days before the court started, the judge still refused to consider evidence of a politicized case.
In response to that, Bashar then published 2 photos as you see here in my hand, these photos were taken in Paris while having dinner with the minister along with another man, whom I had asked you to remember his name, right here is Dul Kamal, he was at that time the president of this irregular investigation commission and the author of the fake report.
Currently, he is the minister of foreign affairs of the Comoros. They all went to Paris to buy a statement under a threat against president Sambi just a few days before the trial started.
There is no hope for justice for Sambi under the current administration.
The court was specially chosen because there is no appeal possible under the state security court in Comoros.
So, we will take this case to the African Union, League of Arab States and the UN human rights council.
The only hope to set President Sambi free is to pressure the Comoros government.
I showed you a small part of the irregularities, but we can talk for a whole day about all the other irregularities which is why we are take it the UN human rights council.
This is arbitrary detention on a crime that does not exist in Comoros. There are in this case a series of very blunt violation of international law, which is why we were happy that Dr. Hasan Jouni is with us along 2 other European lawyers and 2 other lawyers from Comoros.”
Then Dr. Hassan Johnny spoke the following:
“Dr. Yahya Ghaddar assigned me to form an international legal team to defend Former President of the Republic of the Comoros, the oppressed President Ahmed Sambi, And after international lawyer Jean Foreman prepared the defense strategy and discussed it with lawyers in the Comoros.
A study was presented to defend the rights of President Sambi in the light of international law, especially international human rights law.
It has become clear to us that the arrest of President Sambi is arbitrary and violates the rules and norms of international human rights law.
This was recognized by the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Arbitrary Detention.
So is the African Commission on Human Rights. As we have also found that the detention of President Sambi constitutes physical and psychological torture,
Likewise, the authorities in the Comoros did not provide President Sambi with a fair trial in which he could defend himself and allow the team of local and foreign lawyers to carry out their professional duties.
Therefore, after President Sambi’s decision not to attend the illegal farce court. The legal team held a press conference attended by more than fifty channels and media figures, in which it showed the lack of respect of the authorities in the Comoros for the rights of President Ahmed Sambi, especially that he is subjected to torture, as well as to arbitrary detention, in addition to his right to a fair trial.
It also showed that many of the international, Islamic, Arab and African conventions that the Comoros state has acceded to, and international norms related to human rights have been violated by the authority against President Ahmed Sambi,
President Ahmed Sambi asked me to show the world the nature of the injustice he suffered through legal breaches practiced by the authorities in the Comoros.
Accordingly, the Global Gathering in Support of the Choice of Resistance called on all living militant forces in the world to participate in the media campaign to expose what happened in the trial of former President Ahmed Sambi in terms of violations of the national law of the Comoros and of international human rights law and norms.
Then, the daughter of President Sambi, lawyer Taslem Sambi, spoke via Zoom, and she said in her speech:
First of all, I would like to thank all the people present at this webinar, those currently in Beirut but also those around the world who are watching it live from Zoom.
My sincere thanks to the Global Gathering in Support of the choice of Resistance, which supports public freedoms and defenders of human rights, and in particular to Dr. Yahya Ghaddar, for organizing this symposium in order to denounce the decision to sentence my father to life imprisonment.
As Mr. Yan Fermon and Dr. Hassan Jouni explained, the trial that took place was nothing but a charade and a legal farce. I thank them for their testimony, which is of great value since they traveled to the Comoros and lived through this mock trial.
They know how much my father’s rights and freedoms have been violated on a daily basis for several years.
With your support and assistance, I hope we will succeed in moving this fight forward so that my father, as well as all other political prisoners in the Comoros, can quickly regain their freedom.
I appeal to all people who are convinced, like us, that human rights are not just a word but a reality. My father, Mr. Sambi, is imprisoned for life, although there is no evidence against him. Only our actions, our struggle and our organized work can positively change his situation.
Thank you very much again.
A number of lawyers, jurists, politicians, and coordinators of the assembly also participated in the meeting, in person, at the gathering’s headquarters, calling for the exposure of this trial and affirming the support and participation in all procedures to reach the release of President Sambi and his rehabilitation.
In conclusion, the Secretary general of the Global Gathering in Support of the Choice of Resistance thanked the participating gentlemen, and concluded the meeting, stressing the Gathering’s commitment to follow up the issue in all forums to break the captivity and arrest of the Mujahid President Ahmed Sambi.
