A/HRC/13/42* page 129 281. Those who were seized mostly reappeared in a number of police stations in Harare on or around 23 December 2008, after being handed over by the men who abducted them, who were reportedly members of the security forces. They were then held in police detention, and were charged in May 2009. Jestina Mukoko and eight others were cleared of the terrorism charges against them by the Zimbabwean Supreme Court on 28 September 2009. In a blow to Ms. Mukoko’s abductors, the court ruled that “the State, through its agents, violated the applicant’s constitutional rights protected under the constitution of Zimbabwe to an extent entitling the applicant to a permanent stay of criminal prosecution associated with the above violations”.489 VI. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS A. Conclusions 282. International law clearly prohibits secret detention, which violates a number of human rights and humanitarian law norms that may not be derogated from under any circumstances. If secret detention constitutes enforced disappearances and is widely or systematically practiced, it may even amount to a crime against humanity. However, in spite of these unequivocal norms, secret detention continues to be used in the name of countering terrorism around the world. The evidence gathered by the four experts for the present study clearly shows that many States, referring to concerns relating to national security - often perceived or presented as unprecedented emergencies or threats - resort to secret detention. 283. Resorting to secret detention effectively means taking detainees outside the legal framework and rendering the safeguards contained in international instruments, most importantly habeas corpus, meaningless. The most disturbing consequence of secret detention is, as many of the experts’ interlocutors pointed out, the complete arbitrariness of the situation, together with the uncertainty about the duration of the secret detention and the feeling that there is no way the individual can regain control of his or her life. 284. A comparison of past and more recent practices of secret detention brings to the fore many common features, despite considerable variations in political and social contexts. 1. Emergency contexts 285. States of emergency, international wars and the fight against terrorism - often framed in vaguely defined legal provisions - constitute an “enabling environment” for secret detention. As in the past, extraordinary powers are today conferred on authorities, including armed forces, law enforcement bodies and/or intelligence agencies, under states of emergency or global war paradigms either without or with very restricted control mechanisms by parliaments or judicial bodies. This thus renders many, or even all, of the safeguards contained in criminal law and required by international human rights law 489 “Zimbabwe: Jestina Mukoko - ‘Not bitter, but better’”, IRIN, 1 October 2009. Available from www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86392.