Uruguayan citizen, at present resident in Sweden as a political refugee, declared, inter alia, the fohowing: I have known Mr. Eduardo Bleier personally since 1955; our ac­ quaintance continued until 1975. Therefore my ability to identify him in person is beyond doubt. 1 was detained in Montevideo on 2 February 1976 and held until 1 July 1979 ... At the beginning of my imprisonment, on a date between 6 and 10 February 1976 which 1 can­ not specify more exactly with any certainty, the events which 1 am about to relate took place. I was imprisoned in the barracks of Infan­ try Regiment N o . 13, in Camino Casavalle, Montevideo, held com­ pletely incommunicado and tortured along with other prisoners. On two or three occasions 1 struggled violently with the torturers and, driven by pain and desperation, snatched off the hood which 1 had to wear all the time. During the night of the same day we heard cries and saw Bleier fall­ ing down the stairs which led to the little room upstairs. When he reached the bottom, he sat up and said something to them for which he was beaten. On another day, between the cries of one of the worst torture sessions, 1 suddenly heard about six or seven people ap­ proaching, struggUng with someone who clutched me for a moment and said, "They want to kill m e " . At that moment they trampled on one of my breasts and the pain forced me to sit up ... my bUndfold slipped and 1 saw that some torturers were again taking Bleier upstairs. 10.3 These testimonies were transmitted to the State party on 17 February 1981. By note of 5 May 1981 the State party, referring to Mrs. Bleier's communications of 31 October 1980, reiterated its position that it did not know the whereabouts of Eduardo Bleier. On those occasions 1 saw Eduardo Bleier, who was being subjected to savage torture by a group of men. 1 identified him quite clearly and positively, without the slightest doubt, and so confirmed my certainty that Mr. Bleier was there and was being tortured, because 1 had for a long time fully recognized his voice, both in its normal tone and in his heart-rending shrieks under torture. 11.1 By an interim decision of 2 AprU 1981 the Human Rights Committee stated that before adopting final views in the matter, What I was able to see and hear showed that Mr. Bleier was being subjected to particularly brutal torture and continually insulted at the same time.' the Committee considers that it is the clear duty of the Government of Uruguay to make a full and thorough inquiry (a) into the allegations concerning Mr. Bleier's arrest and his treatment while in detention prior to 26 August 1976, and (i>) as to his apparent disappearance and the circumstances in which a warrant for his arrest was issued on 26 August 1976. The Committee urges that this should be done without further delay and that the Committee should be informed of the ac­ tion taken by the Government of Uruguay and of the outcome of the inquiry. 8.2 The additional information submitted by Rosa Valiño de Bleier on 20 June and 26 July 1980 was transmitted to the State party on 23 June and 2 September 1980, respectively. 9. In its submission of 9 October 1980, the State party repeated what it had stated in its brief submission of 29 December 1978, namely, that a warrant was stih out for the arrest of Eduardo Bleier, whose whereabouts were stih unknown. No information, explanations or observations were offered with regard to the various submissions from the authors concerning Mr. Bleier's detention. 11.2 The Committee based its interim decision on the fohowing considerations: 11. As to the merits of the case, the Committee had before it (i) detailed information, including statements of family members and eyewitness testimonies of persons who had been detained in Uruguayan prisons together with Eduardo Bleier and who were later released, concerning his detention and severe mistreatment in prison and later "disappearance" and (ii) a brief categorical denial of Eduardo Bleier's detention by the Government of Uruguay, which, in the light of (i), is totally insufficient. 10.1 With reference to operative paragraph 6 of the Committee's decision of 24 March 1980, Mrs. Rosa Vahño de Bleier submitted on 31 October 1980 three further testimonies from persons who claim to have seen Eduardo Bleier in detention. One of them, Manuel Pineiro Pena, a Spanish citizen, declared in Barcelona, Spain, on 24 September 1980: 12. The Committee cannot but give appropriate weight to the overwhelming information submitted by the authors of the complaint. This information tends to corroborate the author's allegation that Eduardo Bleier was arrested at the end of October 1975 in Montevideo, Uruguay. His detention would appear to be confirmed at that time by the authorities because his name was on a list of prisoners read out once a week at an army unit in Montevideo; it also appears to be confirmed by several fellow prisoners and other persons who had seen and talked to him in several identified detention centres in Uruguay. Also, several eyewitnesses have reported that Eduardo Bleier was subjected to severe torture during detention. I was arrested in my house by an intelligence squad of the Uruguayan army in the early morning of 27 October 1975 and taken hooded to a private house used by this squad for all kinds of torture ... In this place, three days after my arrest, 1 heard for the first time the voice and cries of Eduardo Bleier as he was being tortured. 1 heard them again in the early days of November of the same year when I was transferred to the barracks of the 13th Infantry Battahon in Calle Instrucciones, where I could also see him through a small gap in the blindfold which covered my eyes during the first eight months of my detention and also because, for some 15 days, we were lying on the floor side by side ... Then, one night in early December, I heard them calling him as always by his number, which was 52, and they took him to the interrogation room; for hours his cries were heard, and then there came a moment when his cries ceased and we heard the medical orderly being summoned urgently. 13. The failure of the State party to address in substance the serious allegations brought against it and corroborated by unrefuted information, cannot but lead to the conclusion that Eduardo Bleier is ehher still detained, incommunicado, by the Uruguayan authorities or has died while in custody at the hands of the Uruguayan authorities. 12. By a note of 14 August 1981 the State party sub­ mitted the following observations on the Committee's interim decision of 2 April 1981: 10.2 Another witness, Vilma Antiiney de Muro, a Uruguayan citizen residing in Sweden, testified that she had been arrested on 3 November 1975 and taken to the barracks of the 13th Infantry Battahon, where she first saw Bleier on 7 November. the Government of Uruguay wishes to state that, in paragraph 13 of that document, the Committee displays not only an ignorance of legal rules relating to presumption of guilt, but a lack of ethics in carrying out the tasks entrusted to it, since it so rashly arrived at the serious conclusion that the Uruguayan authorities had put Eduardo Bleier to death. The Committee, whose purpose is to protect, promote and en­ sure respect for civil and political rights, should bear in mind that this task should always be carried out under the rule of law in accordance with its mandate and the universally accepted procedures concerning such matters as guilt and presumption of guilt. ' Alcides Lanza Perdomo was one of the authors and one of the vic­ tims mentioned in communication N o . 8/1977 reported above, pp. 45 and seq. Ill