CAT/C/47/D/368/2008 State have failed to conduct prompt, full investigations and thus have not made findings of fact deserving of “considerable weight”, the Committee has engaged in a “free assessment” of the facts at issue, based upon the full set of circumstances in the case. One relevant example was the decision on communication No. 257/2004, Keremedchiev v. Bulgaria. In that case, the Committee rejected the State party’s claim, stemming from a decision of its courts, that the State party’s police officers had used necessary and proportionate force in arresting him and had inflicted only “slight physical injury”. Instead, the Committee found that the complainant’s injuries were too great to correspond to the use of proportionate force by the officers and rejected the State party court’s finding that the injury resulting from the infliction of force was “slight”, finding instead that it amounted to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment within article 16 of the Convention.b 6. Not only does the Committee’s statement that “it is not its task to weigh the evidence” conflict with general comment No. 1 and with its jurisprudence in individual communications; it also seems inconsistent with the Committee’s decision in this very case. For the Committee to reach a decision that a violation of article 16 of the Convention occurred, it must reject the version of the facts articulated by the State party in this case. While, as the Committee notes, Mr. Sonko was undisputedly in the custody of the State party in the moments leading to his death, this fact alone should not compel us to conclude that the State party committed cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. It is not the case that every death that occurs in custody constitutes a violation of the Convention; moreover, even where a State’s agents were negligent, resulting in the death of a person in their custody, and should incur liability under domestic tort law for the harm caused by their negligence, it is not necessarily the case that this negligence will also constitute “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment” as proscribed by the Convention. In this case, the Committee is called upon to make a finding of fact, and to resolve tensions between the accounts offered by the author and the State party, such as whether the State’s agents left Mr. Sonko in possession of his dinghy when they expelled him from the patrol vessel, and if so, how Mr. Sonko could have nevertheless drowned before reaching the shore if this was the case. The Committee has apparently determined that the State’s version of the events is not credible. It is well within its power to do so and should have stated so plainly. (Signed) Felice Gaer [Done in English, French and Spanish, the English text being the original version. Subsequently to be issued also in Arabic, Chinese and Russian as part of the Committee’s annual report to the General Assembly.] b GE.12-40869 Communication No. 257/2004, Keremedchiev v. Bulgaria, decision of 11 November 2008, para. 9.3. 13