(6) The Committee also welcomes the efforts made to date by the State party to establish the truth and secure reparation and access to justice in relation to the serious human rights violations committed in the country during the dictatorship. (7) The Committee welcomes the news that the Convention is being invoked directly before national courts in numerous complaints concerning offences such as the use of torture which have been lodged by victims of political imprisonment and torture by the dictatorship. (8) The Committee also welcomes the news that in 2008 the Forensic Medical Service created a unit within its Human Rights Programme devoted to the implementation of the Manual on Effective Investigation and Documentation of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (the Istanbul Protocol). (9) The Committee also welcomes the decision taken by the State party to extradite former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori to Peru. C. Principal subjects of concern and recommendations Definition, punishment and imprescriptibility of torture (10) Notwithstanding the State party’s assertion that the Chilean Criminal Code punishes all acts that can be described as torture within the meaning of article 1 of the Convention, the Committee remains concerned that, despite its previous recommendations, the definition of torture in the State party is still not fully in line with the provisions of article 1 of the Convention. The Committee also considers that the Criminal Code fails to encompass all of the acts defined as punishable in the Convention, such as attempted torture. Furthermore, given the grave nature of the offence of torture, the Committee is concerned, as already mentioned in its previous concluding observations, that the 10-year statute of limitations for that offence has not been extended or abolished. While appreciating the proposal for a bill to provide an interpretation of article 93 of the Criminal Code, regarding grounds for exemption from criminal liability, the Committee is concerned that the proposal has not been accepted (arts. 1 and 4). The State party should take the necessary steps to ensure that all acts of torture referred to in articles 1 and 4 of the Convention are classified as offences in its domestic criminal legislation and that appropriate penalties are applied in each case, taking into account the grave nature of such offences. The Committee also urges the State party to abolish the statute of limitations currently applicable to the offence of torture. Punishment of international crimes (11) The Committee welcomes the bill which would define crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes as offences, and particularly welcomes article 40 of the bill, which would establish the imprescriptibility of all such crimes. However, the Committee is concerned at the delay in adopting the bill (art. 2). The Committee urges the State party to pass into law the bill establishing the imprescriptibility of the above-mentioned crimes. Amnesty Decree-Law No. 2.191 (12) The Committee notes that the Chilean courts, and in particular the Supreme Court, are handing down judgements in which they rule that the Amnesty Decree-Law (under which people who committed human rights violations between 11 September 1973 and 10 March 1978 cannot be punished) is inapplicable, citing international human rights instruments as the legal basis for that finding. Nonetheless, the Committee feels that, in line with the ruling of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the case of Almonacid Arellanos y otros of 26 September 2006, the fact that this decree-law remains in force leaves the application of the amnesty up to the judgement of the domestic courts. The Committee has learned of recent Supreme Court decisions that appear to take the existence of that decree-law into account, particularly in reducing the applicable penalties for serious crimes committed during the dictatorship (art. 2). 82