E/CN.4/1999/61/Add.1 page 12 framework, especially with regard to reduction of the length of periods in police detention. However, notwithstanding the efforts of the Government, torture persists in Turkey. This is in part due to the failure of prosecutors to monitor adequately the treatment of detainees during the detention period and to investigate in a serious manner allegations of torture made by detainees. Furthermore, virtually all the lawyers who spoke to the Special Rapporteur insisted that convictions, particularly in the State Security Courts, are based almost exclusively on confessions by the defendant. A lawyer from the Human Rights Association of Turkey estimated that 90 per cent of convictions are based solely on testimonial evidence. Other lawyers stated that they had never participated in a case in the State Security Courts in which testimony was held inadmissible because it was coerced by means of torture or ill-treatment. 40. Paragraph 16 of the Guidelines on the Role of Prosecutors provides: “When prosecutors come into possession of evidence against suspects that they know or believe on reasonable grounds was obtained through recourse to unlawful methods, which constitute a grave violation of the suspect’s human rights, especially involving torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, or other abuses of human rights, they shall refuse to use such evidence against anyone other than those who used such methods, or inform the Court accordingly, and shall take all necessary steps to ensure that those responsible for using such methods are brought to justice.” 41. The failure of prosecutors to investigate vigorously the widespread allegations of torture that they receive is a clear breach of their professional duties. 42. Although all the prosecutors of the State Security Courts and the public prosecutors with whom the Special Rapporteur met stated categorically that statements obtained by coercion are inadmissible, candid comments by one chief prosecutor of a State Security Court demonstrate the “loopholes” that do exist. For example, he told the Special Rapporteur that most charges of aiding and abetting terrorist activities are based primarily on statements by the accused, because there tends to be no corroborative evidence in such cases. However, the Special Rapporteur was informed of aiding and abetting cases in which the judges had released detainees charged with this crime who alleged that their confessions were coerced, but had not investigated further the allegations of torture. It is not clear whether the judges had ruled the statements inadmissible as illegally obtained evidence, or whether they had released the defendants from custody on other grounds. 43. The same chief prosecutor also informed the Special Rapporteur that a confession statement is still admissible, even if obtained under torture, if there exists corroborative evidence. By way of explanation, he stated that terrorists harm themselves in custody to make it appear that police tortured them. He also stated that there is an assumption on the part of the prosecutor that the police are well intentioned. 44. Alleged victims of torture from whom the Special Rapporteur received testimonies repeatedly claimed that their subsequent retractions of