CAT/C/COL/CO/4 The Committee recommends that the State party strengthen the Early Warning System in order to prevent displacement and other gross human rights violations, ensuring that it is allocated sufficient human and financial resources, that warnings are issued in good time, and that the civil authorities at the departmental, municipal and other levels participate in the coordination of preventive measures. Given their valuable role in preventing violations, the Committee recommends that the State party allocate more resources to community defenders attached to the Ombudsman’s Office and extend the scope of the programme. Extradition 19. The Committee is concerned that the extradition of paramilitary leaders to the United States of America to answer charges of drug trafficking has produced a situation that hampers investigations into their responsibility for gross human rights violations. The lack of an effective legal framework for guaranteeing the obligations entered into under the Convention hinders victims’ access to justice, the truth and redress and contravenes the State’s responsibility to investigate, try and punish crimes of torture (articles 6 and 9 of the Convention). The State party should ensure that extraditions do not hamper the efforts required to investigate, try and punish gross human rights violations. The State party should take steps to ensure that extradited persons cooperate in investigations in Colombia into gross human rights violations. The State party should ensure that future extraditions take place within a legal framework that recognizes the obligations imposed by the Convention. Arbitrary detentions 20. The Committee is concerned about the high incidence of arbitrary arrests, and in particular the use of preventive administrative detention by the police and mass arrests by the police and the army. The Committee notes that arrest warrants are frequently insufficiently substantiated by evidence and that arrests are used as a means of stigmatizing certain groups such as community leaders, youth, indigenous people, Afro-Colombians and peasants (art. 2 of the Convention). The Committee recommends that the State party take steps to eradicate preventive administrative detention and mass arrests, and act on the recommendations made by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention following its mission to Colombia in 2008 (A/HRC/10/21/Add.3). Conditions in detention 21. The Committee remains concerned about conditions in detention in the light of persistent overcrowding and continuing complaints of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in prisons and places of temporary detention. The Committee is concerned that prolonged solitary confinement is used as a form of punishment. It has received reports of inhuman or degrading treatment in the Valledupar high- and mediumsecurity prison and the Bellavista prison in Medellin. The Committee is concerned that complaints about cases of torture and inhuman treatment tend to be dealt with through disciplinary proceedings alone, and that it has rarely been possible to carry out investigations. The Committee is also concerned about the military nature of the prisons and the scant availability of mental health services for prisoners (articles 11 and 16 of the Convention). The State party should adopt effective measures to improve material conditions in prisons, reduce the current overcrowding and properly meet the basic needs of all 6 GE.10-42033