E/CN.4/2006/6/Add.6 page 27 which the subject is not limited to civil servants and may also include non-civil servants. The scope of the subjects for crimes of torture under Chinese law is broad and is in accord with Article 1, Para. 2 CAT.” 9 Decision on the Criteria for Filing Cases in those Cases where Filing and Investigation is Directly Handled by the Procuratorate of 16 September 1999. 10 Ibid. 11 In written comments of 25 January 2006 the PRC stated that, “according to judicial practice”, article 247 (“coercive interrogation and violent extraction of evidence”) of the CL includes “deliberately subjecting a victim to …taking medication, hypnosis, or any other acts that cause a person high level of pain or loss of consciousness or will”. In addition the PRC stated that articles 147 (“insulting another”) and the crimes of illegal search and illegal detention are also related to the prohibition of mental torture. 12 Article 247 provides: “Any judicial officer who extorts confession from a criminal suspect or defendant by torture or extorts testimony from a witness by violence shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention. If he causes injury, disability or death to the victim, he shall be convicted and given a heavier punishment in accordance with the provisions of Article 234 or 232 of this Law.” Article 248 of CL provides: “Any policeman or other officer of an institution of confinement like a prison, a detention house or a custody house who beats a prisoner or maltreats him by subjecting him to corporal punishment, if the circumstances are serious shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention; if the circumstances are especially serious, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than 10 years. If he causes injury, disability or death to the victim, he shall be convicted and given a heavier punishment in accordance with the provisions of Article 234 or 232 of this Law. Any policeman or other officer who instigates a person held in custody to beat or maltreat another person held in custody by subjecting him to corporal punishment, the policeman or officer shall be punished in accordance with the provisions of the preceding paragraph.” The CL also provides that the judicial officer who causes death to the victim may be sentenced to death. 13 A Decision on Severely Punishing Criminals Seriously Endangering Social Order and Security complements the CL and prescribes that those who intentionally do harm to the body of others that leads to serious injury or death can be condemned beyond the maximum punishment prescribed in the CL, even to the death penalty. Passed by the Standing Committee of the NPC in September 1979. 14 This stipulates that police officers who cause unnecessary personal injury or death or loss of personal property through unlawful use of police instruments or weapons shall be punished by law. Issued by the State Council of China in 1996. 15 See CAT/C/39/Add.2, paras. 9 and 10. 16 Revision was published by the Ministry of Public Security on 14 May 1998.