E/CN.4/2000/16 page 17 (d) El Ejido (Almeria) 59. A 22-year-old Algerian reported that he had been tortured by the police (26 April 1997). According to his version of the facts, J. Andalusi was arrested by two policemen from El Ejido, who took him out into open country, forced him into a dried-out pond and beat him with truncheons until he lost consciousness. However, the police state that he was a violent man who had already been arrested several times and that he was injured while they were trying to arrest him. At the request of the workers’ commissions and the Paz y Solidaridad Foundation - two organizations representing Andalusi - the case was referred to the Defender of the Andalusian People. Government reply 60. According to information supplied by the principal police prefecture, on 26 April 1997 the police authorities in El Ejido received complaint No. 483/97. The preliminary inquiry (No. 278/97) was assigned to investigating magistrate No. 1 in the same locality. The local police arrested Rameni Hicham, born in Algeria in 1975, Abdeljalil Chabouni, born in Morocco in 1968, Said Misahoui, born in Algeria in 1977, and Jaimai Andalousi, born in Algeria in 1975, on suspicion of having stolen a car. 61. The police station files indicate that Jaimai Andalousi was arrested eight times between 1995 and 1998 for various offences: infringements of the law concerning foreigners, illegal use of motor vehicles, robbery with violence, obstructionism, sexual brutality, wounding with a knife and threats. It was not the national police force which intervened, but the El Ejido local police and the gendarmerie. (e) Córdoba 62. The municipal authorities are investigating the alleged ill-treatment of a Senegalese national by a member of the local police on 23 October 1997. El Hadji G., who had been living in Córdoba for 10 years and whose papers were in order, was insulted by a policeman, who called him a “stupid bastard” several times and told him that he was going to teach him to respect the Spanish police. He handcuffed him and hit him on the head (causing an injury to the skull for which he subsequently had to be hospitalized), and threatened to withdraw his municipal hawker’s licence. The colleagues of the policeman asked him to cool down. El Hadji was then brought before the judge on duty, who ordered his immediate release. The presumed aggressor affirms that El Hadji attacked him: “The Senegalese pushed me with his hand and hurt me; he attacked me without any reason”. This is denied by the Association for the Defence of Immigrants in Córdoba, which has asked the municipal authorities to open an inquiry to clarify the facts. The Immigration Office, for its part, has criticized the mayor of Córdoba for the “inertia which the municipal authorities have shown in this case” and pointed out that that indifference is liable to “give rise to behaviour patterns among the inhabitants of Córdoba which are alien to the spirit of openness and solidarity which characterizes them”. Government reply 63. According to the police station, complaint No. 803 was filed with the municipal police on 23 October 1997. In that complaint El Hadji G., a Senegalese national, was accused of