E/CN.4/2000/9 page 97 Fifth Corps of police on grounds of murder and severe and minor bodily harm. Another of the accused had been acquitted and the whereabouts of one of those implicated in the case remained unknown. On 28 October 1997, the fourth Chamber of the Court of Appeals had partially voided the earlier decision and acquitted all the accused except the former chief of the Fifth Corps of police, whose sentence was reduced to 10 years' imprisonment. Judicial review proceedings are under way. No financial compensation has been granted in the case, because there have been no means of substantiating the damages and injuries, the plaintiffs having merely cited a sum. Guinea-Bissau Regular communications and replies received 475. By letter dated 3 September 1999, the Special Rapporteur informed the Government that he had received information on the following cases. 476. About twenty people were reportedly detained by the military in February 1998 and accused of arms trafficking. They are said to have been beaten with truncheons. Four of them allegedly suffered partial paralysis: Filipe Manga of the left hand, and the others, including Lamine Djata of Senegal, of the legs. 477. Samba Djalo, a member of the Junta Militar, was reportedly arrested in Judgul in late June 1998. He is said to have later escaped from prison and to have testified that soldiers stuck needles into his penis at the time of his arrest. 478. Armando Bion was allegedly arrested in Bissau in September 1998 and accused of espionage for the Junta Militar. Soldiers reportedly struck him with their rifle butts. 479. Asumane Fati, a member of the political opposition party União para a Mudança, was reportedly arrested on 4 July 1998 for having criticised the President of the Republic and was taken by a soldier to a cell in the central police station. There he is said to have been struck all over the body with a military belt, his ear reportedly being torn. He is said to have been released soon thereafter. He was allegedly treated in this manner for having started a petition calling for a halt to the fighting in Guinea-Bissau. 480. By letter dated 8 November 1999, the Special Rapporteur reminded the Government of a number of cases he had transmitted in October 1998 regarding which no response had been received. Urgent appeals and replies received 481. On 6 January 1999, the Special Rapporteur transmitted an urgent appeal jointly with the Chairman-Rapporteur of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concerning Alpha Conde, a member of the National Assembly and currently president of the Rassemblement du Peuple de Guinée, who had been a presidential candidate in the elections of 14 December 1998. He was reportedly arrested on the night of 15 December by members of the Presidential Guard and has allegedly been kept ever since in incommunicado detention in an unidentified location, although it appears that he is being detained at Koundara military camp.