Djibouti / Provisional release / Two radio reporters freed conditionally after being held for four days and tortured

PARIS, France, November 25, 2011/African Press Organization (APO)/ -- La Voix de Djibouti correspondents Farah Abadid Hildid and Houssein Robleh Dabar were released provisionally at 8 p.m. yesterday after being held by the gendarmerie for four days, during which time they were both reportedly tortured.

Before being freed, they were questioned by state prosecutor Maki Omar Abdoulkader and prosecutor general Djama Souleiman Ali in turn. They were then taken before an investigating judge at the supreme court, where they were charged with encouraging an illegal demonstration and insulting the president. They are subject to judicial control while on conditional release.

The mistreatment to which they were subjected was apparently ordered by Sgt. Maj. Abdourahman Omar Saïd, the gendarme allegedly responsible for the torture of Balbala

resident Dirir Ibrahim Bouraleh, who died as a result of the injuries he received while held in a gendarmerie unit from 23 to 27 April.

The identity of the two gendarmes who tortured Hildid and Dabar this week is not yet known. They were not the ones who tortured Hildid while he was in the gendarmerie's custody for five days in February.