E/CN.4/1993/26 page 118 Venezuela Information transmitted to the Government 545. In a letter of 27 October 1992 the Special Rapporteur informed the Government that he had received reports that torture is frequently inflicted on persons arrested by the metropolitan police, the judicial police and the national guard as well as by the intelligence services directorate and the military intelligence directorate. The most commonly used methods include beatings, electric shocks and near suffocation by means of plastic bags containing irritants such as pesticides placed over the head. 546. The use of torture is reported to be facilitated by the fact that the police may keep a person in custody for eight days and use confessions obtained later in the course of proceedings. The use of judicial remedies by victims is discouraged by the fact that very few complaints result in the conviction of the torturers. The following cases had been communicated to the Special Rapporteur: (a) Tulio Aguilar, Victor Avendano, William Barboza, Cecilia Benítez Valera, Wilfredo Bermúdez, José Figueroa, Carmen Alicia Gómez Potella, Alexander Hernández, Gualberto Martínez Prado, Raúl Miranda Borges, Ursuala Mujica, Victor Padilla Villegas, Adrián Parra Ramírez, Hirán Parran Ramírez, José Perdomo, Degnis Quiames, José Rodríguez Bolívar, Anuar Rodríguez, Roraima Sánchez, Ivonne Sequera, Felix Silva and Jesús Torrealba were arrested by Carabobo state police on 4 February 1992 and taken to the Navas Espinola installations. There the 22 detainees, most of them students, were beaten for several hours and given electric shocks. They were held incommunicado until 12 February and received no medical treatment; (b) Daniel Alvarado Alarcón, Luis Enrique Andrade, Luis Enrique Barroso, Luis Alberto Caballero Fernández, Hector Illich Chacón Delgado, José Gregorio Escalona Delgado, Jesús Enrique González Doubranger, Lizandro Obed Pérez Hernández, Orlando José Ramírez Paez, José Angel Rodríguez Macías, Julio César Rojas Avila, Jonathan Alexis Toro Marval, Carlos Alejandro Valerio and Mark Flavio Zuccheli, all students at Venezuela Central University in the Federal District, were arrested at the campus and taken to the San José Cotiza barracks by the metropolitan police. The students were hooded when arrested and violently beaten. At the barracks they were tortured (electric shocks, blows, etc) before being released. No charges were made; (c) Jesús Antonio Castillo Gómez, a journalist on the newspaper El Nacional was arrested by detectives while taking photographs of the police operation on the campus. At the police barracks he was subjected to maltreatment such as electric shocks; (d) Javier Ascanio, age 15, Kodiat Ascanio, Néstor González Igor Luengo, Brezne Manzano, Pablo Jose Rondón, Pedro Rondón, Nelson Villanueva González and Francisco Villanueva González were arrested at 23 de Enero, a Caracas suburb on 21 October 1991 by metropolitan police. The Ascanio brothers were arrested at their home. Kodiat was hung from the