defence of their clients. All of the accused were found guilty by the court and sentenced to four years imprisonment. The Supreme Court later confirmed the sentences, regardless of the irregularities that occurred during the course of the trial. 10. On 28 October 1987, the Mauritanian Minister of Interior announced the discovery of a plot against the government. In reality, all those accused of taking part in this plot belonged to the Black ethnic groups from the South of the country. Over 50 persons were tried for conspiracy by the special tribunal presided by a senior army officer who was not known to have a legal training. He was assisted by two assessors, both of them army officers. No appeal was provided for. The accused were kept in solitary confinement in military camps, deprived of sleep during their interrogation. They were charged with “endangering State security by participating in a plot aimed at deposing the government and provoking massacres and looting among the country’s inhabitants”. A special summary procedure was applied, under the pretext that they had been caught in flagrante delicto. This procedure provides for a trial without any prior investigation by an investigating magistrate. It restricts the rights of the defence as well as access to lawyers and allows the court to pass judgement without any obligation on the part of the judges to indicate the legal bases for their conclusions. Such a procedure is not normally applied in cases relating to a conspiracy or an attempted crime. It is applicable to an already consummated crime. Those who were convicted on 3 December 1987 did not have the right to file appeal. Three lieutenants were sentenced to death and executed three days after. The executions were said to have been stretched out in a manner as to subject the convicts to a slow and cruel death. To put an end to their suffering, they had to provoke the executioners to kill them as quickly as possible. The other accused were sentenced to life imprisonment. 11. Some presumed members of the Ba’ath Arab Socialist Party were also imprisoned for political cause. In September 1987, 17 supposed members of the party were arrested and charged with belonging to a criminal association, participating in unauthorised meetings and abduction of children. Seven of the accused were sentenced to a seven-month suspended term of imprisonment. On 10 September 1988, in another trial before the State security section of the special tribunal, 16 presumed Ba’athists were charged with disturbing the internal security of the State, having contacts with foreign powers and recruiting military personnel in a time of peace. Thirteen of them were found guilty, mainly on the basis of statements that they sought to withdraw during the trial, on the basis that they had been made under duress. The accused were held in solitary confinement in a police camp and did not have the right to consult their lawyers until three or four days before the trial. Communication 61/91 avers that the accused were arrested and imprisoned for their non-violent political opinions and activities. 12. Communication 61/91 also alleges that their conditions of detention were the worst and cites many examples to prove these allegations. Thus, from December 1987 to September 1988 those detained at Ouatala prison only received a small amount of rice per day, without any meat or salt. Some of them had to eat leaves and grass. The prisoners were forced to carry out very hard labour day and night, they were chained up in pairs in windowless cells. They only received one set of clothes and lived in very bad 3