and illegal detention. The lawyers also talked about the existence of this problem at the Investigation Service of the Ministry of Finance of Georgia. Moreover, it was also common in 2020 when a person invited for an interview is arrested during or at the end of the interview. The lawyers as well as the records produced in the stations that were inspected by the Special Prevention Group, confirmed this practice. The logbook for detainees, in which normally only detainees should be registered, in some cases indicated that the time of entering the station precedes the time of person’s detention. This represents the risky practice in terms of protection against illtreatment, as prior to formal arrest, the person is deprived of access to legal safeguards although even before the detention his liberty was de-facto and unlawfully restricted. The EU Directive on Legal Aid emphasizes that where, in the course of questioning, it is revealed that a person might be the perpetrator of an alleged crime and there might be the need for his detention, questioning should be suspended immediately. It should be possible to continue questioning where the person concerned has been made aware that he or she is being considered as a perpetrator of an alleged crime and that person is able to fully exercise the procedural safeguards.333 The Public Defender considers that any person in the police station should enjoy procedural safeguards regardless of his or her status.334 To this end, it is crucial, inter alia, to establish a mechanism that would enable the monitoring bodies to obtain reliable information about the person's status, the time of his/her arrival and departure from the police station. 3.4.6. Detecting alleged cases of ill-treatment Temporary detention isolators are one of the most important sources for the State Inspector’s Service to receive notifications. The State Inspector’s Service received 291 notifications from TDIs about alleged violence committed by the officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It should be noted that the State Inspector's Service receives notifications from the Temporary Detention Isolator also on the persons placed with injury in the isolator who indicate that they have received those injuries before detention and that the injury, according to the detainees, is not related to any illegal action committed by the law enforcement officer. Even in such cases, representatives of the Investigative Department of the State Inspector's Service conduct interviews to ensure that the person has not been ill-treated. Accordingly, in several cases, a person placed with injuries in a temporary detention isolator initially did not indicate commission of physical or psychological violence against him, however, during interviews with the employees of the State Inspector's Service, he/she raised complaints.335 Those principles of the Istanbul Protocol related to the investigation of torture should be taken into account while investigating the cases of torture and ill-treatment. In this regard, interviewing the alleged victim and other witnesses is especially important, which should be carried out through appropriate Directive 2016/1919 of the European Parliament and of the European Council, para. 10. Available at: <https://bit.ly/3ksClXH >, [last visited: 08.02.2021]. 334 Report to the Ukrainian Government, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, CPT/Inf (2018)41, 06.09.2018, para. 29, Information is available at: < https://rm.coe.int/16808d2c2a>, [last visited: 08.02.2021]. 335 Letter SIS 2 20 00020027 of the State Inspector’s Service of 8 December 2020. 333 105