CAT/C/75 page 11 32. During their visit to the Iguala CERESO, the Committee members interviewed seven inmates, five of whom said that they had been tortured. Two of them, who had been arrested by police patrols at Atoyac in May 2001, said that they had been beaten, particularly on the ears, subjected to mock executions and electric shocks, had plastic bags placed over their heads, water poured into their noses and bandages tied very tightly around their heads and wrists. One said that he had been arrested by the judicial police in August 2001 and had been beaten, had water poured into his nose and been subjected to electric shocks, the marks of which were still visible. 33. The other two inmates who said that they had been tortured were Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera, both members of the Organización de Campesinos Ecologistas de la Sierra de Petatlán y Coyuca de Catalán (Organization of Peasant Environmentalists of Sierra de Petatlán and Coyuca de Catalán), a body formed in 1998 with a view to halting the excessive logging in the area. They reported that, on 2 May 1999, they had been detained without a warrant in the village of Pizotla in the Ajuchitlán del Progreso area of Guerrero State, by members of the Army’s Fortieth Infantry Battalion. On being detained they had been thrown to the ground, beaten, threatened with execution and dragged along by the hair. After being taken to an army post on the banks of the Pizotla River, they had been tied hand and foot and forced to lie face down for several hours, after which Mr. Montiel had been taken to a place close by to be interrogated. He had been kept, blindfolded, on his back while being tortured as follows: his head was forced back by someone pulling on his jaw; someone stood on his shoulders; he was hit in the abdomen and the lumbar region; someone tugged repeatedly at his testicles, causing him to lose consciousness several times; electric shocks were administered to his right thigh, which had previously been sprayed with water; he and his family were threatened with death. During this treatment, which lasted between one and two hours, he had been interrogated about his activities and told he must confess to belonging to an armed opposition group. He had been then returned to where Mr. Cabrera was, and Mr. Cabrera had been taken in turn to a place where, after being blindfolded and made to lie on the floor, he had been tortured in a similar way to Mr. Montiel. Both men had subsequently been taken to the Fortieth Infantry Battalion’s headquarters at Altamirano, where they had again been threatened with death, struck, and forced to confess to possessing and growing drugs and illegally possessing weapons. On 4 May 1999, they had been brought before the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Coyuca de Catalán and then before a judge. They had been held in the Coyuca CERESO for a month before being transferred to the Iguala CERESO. In November 2001, a presidential decree had ordered their release on humanitarian grounds. 34. On 14 July 2000, the National Human Rights Commission issued recommendation 8/2000 to the Secretary for National Defence, acknowledging human rights violations against the community of Pizotla and Mr. Montiel and Mr. Cabrera. It concluded that the detention of the two men had been illegal and that the weapons found in their possession had been “planted” by Army personnel. The Commission also said that, as the Army had persistently remained silent in order to avoid providing it with the information it had requested, it could be considered certain that the men had been tortured. Although the only evidence against them was their confessions extracted under torture, the fifth district court found them guilty on 28 August 2000. Teodoro Cabrera was sentenced to 10 years in prison for carrying a weapon intended solely for Army use, and Rodolfo Montiel was given 6 years and 8 months in prison for planting marijuana, carrying a weapon without a licence and carrying