Six or seven armed individuals in plainclothes arrived in two vehicles and forced him to leave to an unknown location. They did not identify themselves or present an arrest warrant, nor did they give any reason for his arrest.

It was not until he was within the vehicle that they identified themselves as agents of the Department of Intelligence and Security (DRS). They hit him over the head to prevent him from seeing where they were going and pretended that he had been accused of terrorism and the murder of three people. It was not until after his release that Mr. Boukhalfa learned he had been held at the military police station of the DRS in the area of Tazegrart in Ouargla.

Upon his arrival at the station, he was interrogated and accused of terrorism, murdering three people and possessing a Kalashnikov rifle. Mr. Boukhalfa denied all of these accusations. He was thus submitted to acts of torture for eight days, carried out by several agents who covered their faces. He suffered the "supplice de chiffon" method of torture (in which the victim's mouth is filled with a rag or cloth and it is then soaked in water or other liquid to simulate drowning and choke the victim) and severely beaten with a baton on several parts of his body. For several days, he was kept handcuffed and naked in cold temperatures. His humiliation continued as he was forced to eat human excrement from the toilet. On the fifth day of his incommunicado detention, he was thrown down the stairs and broke his ankle.

Under torture, Mr. Boukhalfa said that he owned a gun. He was thus taken to his home, which was searched without turning up anything. Having not found what they were looking for, the agents arrested his mother and interrogated her for several hours at the DRS station.

On 17 January 2011 around 16:00, after eight days of secret detention, the DRS agents released him, injured and exhausted, in front of his home. He was thrown out of the car without regard for his broken angle and the deplorable state of his health.

Following his release, Mr. Boukhalfa went to the forensic unit of Ouargla Hospital claiming that he had been assaulted on the street. A pathologist examined him and confirmed the harm he had suffered, presenting him with a medical certificate of injury. He also took pictures of the visible signs of torture on Mr. Boukhalfa's body. He then approached the prosecutor of the court in Ouargla to inform him of the case and file a complaint of torture against the DRS. The complaint was given no attention.

Following the lack of action on the part of the court, Mr. Boukhalfa presented a complaint to the Ministry of Justice on 12 April 2011. In November 2011, He contacted the court prosecutor again to remind him of the complaint he made in January. The prosecutor responded: "I will give you some advice: pretend it was a dream. I can do nothing for you because it is the Military Security."

In December 2011, Mr. Boukhalfa courageously testified to the injustices he suffered and the refusal of the Algerian justice system to follow up on his complaints in a YouTube video :

Noting that the steps taken by the Algerian judicial authorities were unsuccessful, Mr. Boukhalfa did not see any other possibility of pursuing justice for the violation of his rights in his own country, and thus turned to the Committee against Torture. The Committee took up his case as an individual under Article 22 of the UN Convention against Torture, which has been ratified by Algeria.

This case exposes the serious shortcomings of Algerian justice and confirms that torture is commonly practiced in Algeria. Despite the various commitments made by the authorities, it is clear that a culture of impunity prevails for officers of the security services who commit acts of torture without fear of prosecution. This new case demonstrates, moreover, the glaring lack of independence of the Algerian judicial branch, which remains subject to the will of the executive, especially when it comes to taking action against the DRS.