A/HRC/10/44/Add.1 page 3 4. In addition to Government officials, the Special Rapporteur met with the President of the Appeals Court of Malabo and the National Human Rights Commission. He also had discussions with civil society representatives and met with the United Nations country team and the diplomatic community. 5. The Special Rapporteur wishes to extend his thanks to the Government of Equatorial Guinea for its invitation to undertake a mission to the country. He interprets this invitation as a sign of the willingness of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea to open itself up to independent and objective scrutiny of the situation of torture and ill-treatment, practices to which no country in the world is immune. He expresses his gratitude to his governmental and non-governmental interlocutors in Malabo, Bata and elsewhere. He regrets however that, in violation of the terms of reference for fact-finding missions by special rapporteurs (E/CN.4/1998/45), he was not given access to any places of detention under the control of the military, and that, in a number of instances, access to other facilities was delayed or denied. He is also concerned about possible reprisals against detainees who provided testimony to him. The fact that he was denied access to the Central Police Stations in Malabo and Bata during a follow-up visit reinforces these concerns. 6. On the basis of an analysis of the legal system, visits to detention facilities, interviews with detainees, supporting forensic medical evidence and meetings with Government officials, lawyers and representatives of civil society, the Special Rapporteur would like to make the following preliminary comments. II. TORTURE AND ILL-TREATMENT A. Police or gendarmerie custody 7. The Special Rapporteur found that torture is used systematically by the police against persons who refuse to “cooperate”, such as persons suspected of political as well as ordinary crimes, in particular at the Central Police Stations in Bata and Malabo. The gendarmerie appears to practise torture to a lesser extent. The Special Rapporteur was unable to verify allegations against the military because he was denied access to military facilities. 8. The types of abuse reported to him and corroborated by expert medical analysis, and evidence found in the respective police stations, include: blows to various parts of the body, although often on the soles of the feet and/or the buttocks, using police batons, rubber-coated cables and wooden sticks; electric shocks delivered by battery cables attached to different parts of the body with alligator clips; various forms of suspension, with hands and feet tied together, including the so-called “Ethiopian style”, for extended periods of time. In these positions the victims were swung around and beaten, or heavy objects, for example car batteries, were placed on their backs. Furthermore, they were sometimes blindfolded or forced to inhale candle smoke. In most instances, the purpose of the torture was to extract information or a confession; sometimes it was intended as punishment or intimidation or a means of extorting money.