CAT/OP/MLI/1 82. According to some accounts, prisoners are even forced to help inflict punishment. Given that, in general, warders have left the task of maintaining discipline to cell and yard bosses, it is the latter who decide in an arbitrary fashion what punishment should be administered and by whom. The State party is directly responsible for this situation, since it is the State officials in charge of these establishments who fail to protect the victims and do not punish the perpetrators, who act with their tacit or explicit consent. 83. Protracted solitary confinement is also used as a means of punishing prisoners, including by cell and yard bosses. Another very common form of punishment is to chain prisoners by the feet and hands both in solitary confinement and ordinary cells. These forms of torture and ill-treatment can last for several weeks, even months, which is wholly unacceptable, and also seem to be administered in a completely arbitrary manner. The Subcommittee also heard eyewitness reports of prisoners dying of injuries caused by the above-mentioned ill-treatment and acts of torture. The failure to keep a register of disciplinary measures allows the perpetrators to act with total impunity and serves only to exacerbate the arbitrary abuse of power. 84. According to the information obtained, it is clear that the acts of torture and illtreatment are invariably associated either with maintaining discipline among the inmate population, which is necessary due to the lack of resources allocated to security, among other reasons, or with the corruption that is widespread in the prison system. The importance of the human factor should not be underestimated, however, since many prisoners indicated that the more or less violent disposition of the warders and other prison staff, but above all of the prison director, largely determined the degree of violence to which inmates were subjected. The arrival of a new director could dramatically increase or decrease the level of violence. Police and gendarmerie stations 85. It is important to note that the majority of cells in the police and gendarmerie stations that were visited either had few inmates or were empty, which stands in contrast with the overcrowding in prisons. The Subcommittee was apprised of cases of torture and ill-treatment inflicted on persons held in custody in police and gendarmerie stations in order to extract confessions. That information was obtained from prison inmates, not during the brief interviews held in the police and gendarmerie stations. The allegations of torture and ill-treatment are similar and always consistent: persons held in custody are tortured in order to extract confessions before they are presented before the court. Numerous reports were received from witnesses of detainees arriving in prison with serious injuries that were the result of having been tortured. The lack of basic rights as detailed above in paragraphs 16 to 34 only serves to encourage such practices. 86. The Subcommittee recalls that, under article 2 of the Convention, no circumstances may be invoked as a justification of torture or ill-treatment. The State party must therefore take all possible measures to stop all ill-treatment and torture of detainees, in prisons as well as in police and gendarmerie stations, in particular by firmly condemning all such acts and establishing a legal framework in accordance with the State’s international obligations to prosecute the perpetrators of such acts. 87. The Subcommittee underscores the importance of the training of law enforcement personnel, civil or military, especially those involved in the custody, interrogation or treatment of detainees and stresses that, under articles 10 and 11 of the Convention, the State party has the obligation to ensure that education and information regarding the prohibition of torture are fully included in the training of such personnel and that interrogation instructions and practices, as well as arrangements for the custody of detainees, are in accordance with the Convention. GE.14-41827 17