E/CN.4/1995/34 page 44 wrists for prolonged periods, blindfolding and hitting. As treatment, his health had deteriorated and medical care was administered. He was being held at the Torah penitentiary, fears were expressed that he might die if not provided with treatment. a result of this allegedly not near Cairo, and adequate medical 222. The Special Rapporteur sent another urgent appeal on 5 May 1994 to the Government on behalf of ’Abd al-Haris Mohammad Madani, a lawyer reportedly arrested on 26 April 1994 at his office in Cairo. He was allegedly so severely tortured at the Giza branch of the SSI that he had to be taken to the Qasr al-Aini hospital. Fears were expressed that he might be tortured again if returned to SSI custody. 223. On 22 June 1994, the Government replied that Abd al-Haris Mohammad Madani was arrested pursuant to authorization by the Higher State Security Prosecutor and that while the arrest squad were taking him to search his home in the district of Warraq al-Arab, Giza, he began to experience difficulty in breathing. He was taken for medical assistance to Qasr al-Aini hospital and that night the Office of the Higher State Security Prosecutor was notified by the hospital that he had died. A forensic doctor carried out a post-mortem on 28 April and the Chief Justice and Attorney-General ordered an investigation into the incident. The final post-mortem report had not yet been lodged and the Office of the Prosecutor was continuing its investigations. Information transmitted by the Government with respect to information in previous reports 224. By letter dated 13 December 1993 the Government replied with respect to general allegations as well as a number of individual cases transmitted by the Special Rapporteur on 26 August 1993. Further information on some of these cases was also provided to the Special Rapporteur by the Government in its correspondence of 27 October 1994. 225. The Government stated that it regarded torture as an inhuman practice and had incorporated penal provisions against the practice that were applicable even during a state of emergency. An office to investigate cases of torture had been established. Since the beginning of 1992, custodial sentences had been passed on 15 policemen and officers convicted of assaulting citizens and 39 others had appeared before disciplinary tribunals on the same charge. Eight of the latter cases were referred by the Office of the Attorney-General to the criminal courts and compensation was awarded in cases in which acts of torture were found to have been committed. 226. Allegations concerning the torture of political detainees in prisons were able to be refuted owing to the fact that judicial bodies exercised their right to monitor and inspect prisons, that the security situation was stable in those prisons and that some non-governmental organizations had been permitted to visit the headquarters of the State Security Police and a large number of prisons. It was inconceivable and impossible that torture could be a customary practice, and even if some of the complaints were true, they constituted exceptional cases that were condemned and punished by law. Egypt was faced with overcrowding in penal institutions, but this did not prevent