CAT/C/HRV/CO/4-5 of the places of deprivation of liberty. The Committee is concerned over reports of insufficient and decreasing funding for the recently established national preventive mechanism, limited human and financial resources for the Office of the Ombudsman and the lack of implementation of its recommendations (arts. 2, 11, 12, 13). The Committee urges the State party to strengthen the independent monitoring of places of deprivation of liberty via a national preventive mechanism that effectively and regularly monitors and inspects all places of detention without prior notice, reports publicly on its findings, and raises with the authorities situations of detention conditions or conduct amounting to torture or ill-treatment. The State party should provide the necessary human and financial resources to ensure the independent and effective operation of the Office of the Ombudsman and the national preventive mechanism. The State party should also cooperate with civil society organizations to allow them to conduct independent monitoring of places of deprivation of liberty. The State party should ensure that the recommendations of the monitoring bodies are considered with respect to implementation. War crimes prosecutions and amnesties for torture 11. While welcoming the information that the prosecution of acts of torture is not limited by a statute of limitations, the Committee is concerned that among the 22,326 persons that were granted amnesty pursuant to the Act on Amnesty from Criminal Prosecution and Proceedings in Respect of Criminal Offences Committed during the Armed Conflicts and the War against the Republic of Croatia, the amendments to that Act, the General Amnesty Act and the decisions issued by the President of Croatia granting pardon, a number of individuals may have benefited from amnesties for acts of torture. The Committee further regrets that the State party has not presented information regarding its sentencing policies for war crimes, and is concerned over reports that a significant number of prosecutions for war crimes had been conducted in absentia, predominantly against defendants of Serb ethnicity, and that the latter had been convicted to much higher sentences than members of the Croatian military under the same charges. The Committee is particularly concerned over reports that to date only one final conviction for war crimes perpetrated during “Operation Storm” had been handed down (arts. 1, 4 and 12). The State party should ensure that all persons, including senior police officials, military personnel and political officials, suspected of complicity in and perpetration of war crimes and crimes against humanity are brought to justice. The State party should abolish the practice of granting amnesties to persons convicted of torture or illtreatment, as outlined by the Committee in its general comments No. 2 (2007) on the implementation of article 2 by States parties and No. 3 (2012) on the implementation of article 14 by States parties, in which the Committee affirmed that amnesties for the crime of torture are incompatible with the obligations of States parties. Conditions of detention 12. While the Committee takes note of the State party’s efforts in increasing the capacity of prisons and the decrease in the number of prisoners in the State party’s correctional institutions, it is concerned at the reports of very high occupancy rates in high security wards (for example, around 200 per cent in the Osijek County Prison). The Committee also remains concerned regarding the conditions of detention in the prisons, in particular in the Zagreb County Prison, where reportedly prisoners spend up to 22 hours per day in their cells and their opportunities to work or engage in other activities are extremely limited. The Committee is also concerned over reports of the deplorable material conditions in psychiatric institutions and in the detention facility for foreigners in Ježevo (arts. 2, 11 and 16). 4