E/CN.4/2004/56 page 9 Special Rapporteur would like to recall that “legal provisions should ensure that detainees are given access to legal counsel within 24 hours of detention …. Security personnel who do not honour such provisions should be disciplined. In exceptional circumstances, under which it is contended that prompt contact with a detainee’s lawyer might raise genuine security concerns and where restriction of such contact is judicially approved, it should at least be possible to allow a meeting with an independent lawyer, such as one recommended by a bar association” (ibid.). 33. The Special Rapporteur has observed that incidents of torture or other forms of ill-treatment frequently occur in the period immediately following deprivation of liberty and during interrogation. The Special Rapporteur recalls that, in compliance with article 15 of the Convention against Torture, confessions made as a result of torture shall not be used as evidence in any proceedings, except against a person accused of torture as evidence that the statement was made. 34. Some basic guarantees shall be applied to avoid torture during interrogation. In accordance with article 11 (combined with article 16) of the Convention against Torture, interrogation rules, instructions, methods and practices shall be kept under systematic review with a view to preventing cases of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Reference is made to principle 23 of the Body of Principles on Detention according to which the duration of interrogations, the intervals between each interrogation and the identity of the officials conducting the interrogation shall be recorded. The information recorded shall be available to the interrogated person and, when provided by the law, to his or her counsel. As the Special Rapporteur has previously recommended, “each interrogation should be initiated with the identification of all persons present. All interrogation sessions should be recorded, and preferably video-recorded, and the identity of all persons present should be included in the records. Evidence from non-recorded interrogations should be excluded from court proceedings. The practice of blindfolding and hooding often makes the prosecution of torture virtually impossible, as victims are rendered incapable of identifying their torturers. That practice should be forbidden. Those legally arrested should not be held in facilities under the control of their interrogators or investigators for more than the time required by law to obtain a judicial warrant of pre-trial detention which, in any case, should not exceed a period of 48 hours. They should accordingly be transferred to a pre-trial facility under a different authority at once, after which no further unsupervised contact with the interrogators or investigators should be permitted” (ibid.). 35. In relation to guarantees during interrogation, the Special Rapporteur is of the opinion that, as provided by article 10 of the Convention against Torture, interrogators should receive training in order to ensure that they have the necessary skills to conduct interrogations and interview victims and witnesses. The Special Rapporteur fully supports the measures proposed by Amnesty International according to which these skills shall include the abilities to “gather all available evidence in a case before interviewing a suspect; plan an interview based on that evidence so that an effective interview can be conducted; treat an interview as a means of gathering more information or evidence rather than as a means of securing a confession; conduct an interview in a manner that respects the suspects’ rights; analyse information obtained during the interview, and carry out any further investigation into the case suggested by that analysis; check any admission or confession made by the suspect against available evidence; and evaluate each interview with a view to learning from each experience and developing interviewing and investigative skills further”.7