The Council of State rejected, Monday March 11, a power of attorney from Kamel Daoudi, under house arrest since 2008, who contests his assignment. In a ruling dated April 6, 2023, the Paris Administrative Court of Appeal rejected Mr. Daoudi’s request, which called for the annulment of the orders setting the conditions of his house arrest.
Mr. Daoudi then appealed to the Council of State to request the annulment of this judgment. In its decision, the Council of State emphasizes that “Mr. Daoudi’s appeal is not admitted.”
His lawyer, Emmanuel Daoud, regretted that the highest administrative court had not examined the case “on its merits”: “It’s a denial of justice,” he told Agence France-Presse. Me Daoud announced that he was going to refer the matter to the European Court of Human Rights, denouncing the “open-air prison” of his client “who cannot work and lives separated from his family”.
Curfew from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m.
The former Franco-Algerian computer engineer was sentenced in 2005 on appeal to six years in prison, forfeiture of his French nationality and permanent ban from the country for “criminal association in relation to a terrorist enterprise”. An alleged member of an Islamist group affiliated with Al-Qaeda, he was suspected of having prepared an attack against the United States embassy in Paris in 2001.
Released from prison in April 2008, banned from entering France, Kamel Daoudi cannot however be deported to Algeria due to the risk of torture incurred. He has therefore been the subject of successive house arrest orders for more than fifteen years, a “lifetime” order which he denounces. He must currently report twice a day to the police station, respect a curfew from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. and not leave Aurillac, where he lives.
But his numerous appeals have failed so far. On September 14, 2023, the European Court of Human Rights rejected a new request, finding that all avenues of appeal available to French justice had not been exhausted.
