Pubdate: Thu, 29 July 1999 Source: Orange County Register (CA) Copyright: 1999 The Orange County Register Contact: http://www.ocregister.com/ Section: News, page 28 FRANCE TOLD TO PAY FOR TORTURING DRUG DEALER France,a country that has proudly enshrined human rights since 1789, was ordered by the European Court of Human Rights on Wednesday to pay the equivalent of $100,000 to a convicted Dutch-Moroccan drug dealer for violating his rights with police "torture" to make him confess. France thus joined Turkey as the only two of the 41 member countries of the Council of Europe to be found guilty of torture by a court sitting on French territory in Strasbourg. The court, established in 1959, found that Ahmed Selmouni, 57, had suffered heavy blows over almost all of his body in "repeated and sustained assaults" over at least four days of questioning by the police in the Paris suburb of Bobigny in November 1991. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake