E/CN.4/2001/66/Add.2 page 33 (advogados datives). The Special Rapporteur was also informed by public defenders in Rio de Janeiro that there used to be a special Public Defender’s Office (Nucléo de Defensa de la Ciudadaniá) providing assistance in police stations to those arrested in flagrante. The service operated 24 hours a day. Unfortunately, it had been closed down because no public defenders were willing to work for this service given the low wages and the fact that they would receive a higher salary as prosecutors. Practitioners and NGOs also indicated that public defenders rarely dedicate adequate time to the representation of their non-paying defendants. They were often reported to meet their clients during the first or even second hearings and not necessarily to speak in defence of their clients during trials. 95. During his visits to police lock-ups, the Special Rapporteur found that most of the suspects believed that their families had not been informed of their arrest and whereabouts and that in practice, persons arrested were very rarely assisted by a lawyer. On the contrary, it was reported that, in the few instances in which a detainee had a private lawyer, the latter had been prevented from seeing his/her clients until after the completion of the preliminary processing. Lawyers indicated that they often saw their clients for the first time at the first court hearing. According to the public defenders whom the Special Rapporteur met in Rio de Janeiro, pursuant to a decree passed in 1995, delegados must send a letter to the public defenders’ office informing it about any arrest within three or four days from the date of the arrest. According to prosecutors from the Nucleo Contra Tortura of the Federal District of Brasilia, 97 per cent of suspects are not assisted by a lawyer during the investigation phase, while the majority of them are only assisted by law students during the judicial phase. They also reported that students do not go to the police stations and usually meet their clients for the first time during the first instruction hearings and are therefore not in a position to bring witnesses. 96. The Special Rapporteur during visits to police stations noticed that, in most cases, no record was kept in the official registers of the time and place of the arrest, nor of the identity of the arresting officers, and subsequent transfer to a police station of suspects. Transfers to medical facilities or to the court were often not recorded. During his visit to the 16th District Police station in Recife, the delegado first indicated to the Special Rapporteur that there was no registry book in which that kind of information was recorded. The police corregedor who accompanied the Special Rapporteur confirmed that such information should be recorded in a registry book, but indicated that there was no standardized registry book. He further informed the Special Rapporteur that the corregedo’s office had proposed to standardize all registry books. An occurrence book was eventually shown to the Special Rapporteur. It recorded the date and time of arrest, but there was no mention of the date and time of the release or transfer to another place of detention. This information was said to be found in the personal file of the suspect. The Special Rapporteur notes that it was nevertheless not recorded in the personal file of the person chosen at random in the occurrence book by the Special Rapporteur. This lack of any record makes it difficult for authorities to refute allegations often heard that during such transfers suspects are subjected to torture and other forms of ill-treatment, including threats, in an attempt to extract confessions or as a form of intimidation in order to prevent them from complaining about previous ill-treatment either to magistrates or doctors and forensic experts. Transfers are often said to take much longer than necessary as en route suspects are often taken to remote areas where they are subjected to ill-treatment or threats. A number of detainees whom the Special Rapporteur met said that after their arrest they had been driven around for hours, allegedly in