Italy deports a Tunisian despite the european Court of Human Rights objection

Italian authorities deported the Tunisian prisoner Ali Ben Sassi Toumi on Sunday 2d August despite Human Rights European Court’s objection for fear of torture in Tunisia. Ali Ben Sassi Toumi has been held incommunicado since being forcibly returned from Italy on 2 August.
Ali Ben Sassi Toumi was released from prison in Benevento, Italy, on 18 May, after serving four years of a six-year sentence on charges of belonging to a terrorist cell in Italy and recruiting fighters for the insurgency in Iraq. He applied for asylum in Italy, but his claim was rejected on the basis that he had been convicted of committing a “serious crime”. He had been held in an immigration detention centre known as an Identification and Expulsion Centre (Centro di identificazione ed espulsione) in Isola di Capo Rizzuto in the Province of Crotone, south-east Italy, since his release from prison. He was forcibly returned despite the European Court of Human Rights calling three times on the Italian authorities to stay the deportation, on the grounds that he was at risk of torture and other ill-treatment in Tunisia. Some sources said that he tried to commit suicide inside a deportation centre.The prisoner did not back down from suicide only after receiving promises to keep him in Italy ; Ali Ben Sassi Toumi is married to an Italian and has three children. It is worth noting that Italy has made great security cooperation with Tunisia in the extradition of the political wanted since the beginning of nineties, despite the objections of human rights international organizations.