CAT/C/75 page 34 159. The Director of the Federal Public Defence Institute, who was present when the members met the President and judges of the Supreme Court, said that the number and quality of the Institute’s defence lawyers had improved considerably since the adoption of the Federal Public Defenders Act in 1998. The services of the Institute’s defenders were available to all the investigation bureaux of the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office, district courts and single-magistrate courts which dealt with Federal criminal matters. 2. Responsibility of the Army in cases of torture 160. Responsibility for torture has also in some cases been attributed to the Army, acting alone or in joint operations with other forces. In accordance with article 16 of the Constitution, the Army does not have the power to detain or question suspects, and anyone it detains in flagrante delicto or during a joint operation must immediately be placed at the disposal of the Public Prosecutor’s Office. This provision, however, is not always observed. In its recommendation 8/2000 the National Human Rights Commission stated that members of the Fortieth Infantry Battalion, Thirty-fifth Military Zone, who were responsible for detaining Rodolfo Montiel Flores and Teodoro Cabrera García on 2 May 1999, violated the principle of legality and the right to liberty of the individuals concerned by keeping them in their custody, without cause, for two and a half days before bringing them before the Public Prosecutor. Mr. Montiel and Mr. Cabrera alleged that they had been tortured during that period, and the Commission accepted those allegations as true. 161. The National Commission also stated the following, in its recommendation 19/2000: “It is a serious matter that, before bringing Mr. Carlos Montes Villaseñor before the official of the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office attached to the El Paraíso Joint Operations Base in Guerrero, the members of the Mexican Army who detained him allegedly used inhuman or degrading treatment on him and also subjected him to psychological pressure aimed at forcing him to confess to participating in the offences with which he was charged. By depriving him, for approximately 45 hours, of his liberty and sense of sight, by tightly blindfolding his eyes and tying his hands, to force him to admit membership of the group called ‘Ejército Revolucionario Popular Insurgente’, they were responsible for an injury to his nose area and swelling of his right wrist.” In its recommendation 20/2000, the National Commission considered the Army to have infringed article 16 of the Constitution in conducting a raid in the Mixteca indigenous community of El Charco, municipality of Ayutla de los Libres, Guerrero on 7 June 1998, because it did not immediately bring the detainees caught in flagrante delicto before the competent authority who, furthermore, was at the scene. 3. Torture in the framework of crime prevention 162. When police patrols and municipal police officers conduct detentions as part of their public order and crime prevention activities or in cases of flagrante delicto they frequently beat and threaten detainees, whether they resist or not, before bringing them before the competent authority, which is normally the Public Prosecutor’s Office. Such treatment is chiefly inflicted with punishment or intimidation in mind. Most such cases, however, are regarded as cruel treatment rather than torture. Many recommendations by the State and national human rights