E/CN.4/1997/7/Add.3 page 22 started for the purchase of new vehicles for transfers of detainees. Both were confident that the introduction of the accusatorial system would speed up proceedings. IV. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 74. The visit of the Special Rapporteur was characterized by accessibility, flexibility and openness. He was able to meet with all the official interlocutors with whom he sought meetings. Some of these were arranged while he was already in the country, thanks to the helpful efficiency of the Human Rights Unit of the Ministry of Foreign Relations and the spirit of cooperation evinced by senior officials of the executive, legislative and judicial arms of Government. Most of those with whom he spoke addressed the problems they faced in preventing violations of human rights within the mandate of the Special Rapporteur with disarming candour. Those with direct responsibility for the behaviour of the security forces and police bodies tended, in varying degrees, to be more cautious about the extent of possible abuses and to affirm more faith in the disciplinary and judicial institutions established to prevent and repress abuses. 75. On the basis of information he received, both before and during the visit, from non-governmental organizations, lawyers, persons claiming to be victims of torture or similar ill-treatment and their families, and the operational and political leadership of the three branches of Government (poder público ), he has been able to develop a general sense of the problem and its scope. In his opinion, torture and similar ill-treatment are perpetrated on persons in the hands of all the law enforcement bodies (Army, National Guard, DISIP, PTJ, state police forces, Caracas Metropolitan Police and some municipal police forces) with powers of arrest, detention or interrogation. Such ill-treatment is neither routine nor automatic, on the one hand, nor an isolated, occasional aberration, on the other. Rather, it is an available technique resorted to at will if there is felt to be an imperative need to secure a confession or information relevant to the task of repressing crime, whether it be common or politically motivated crime. Sometimes it may be used for the purpose of “settling scores” or eliciting bribes, either from the victims or from others close to the victims (landholders, shopowners, etc.) with an interest in teaching the latter “a lesson”. Torture may also be inflicted against persons under administrative detention in application of the Law of Vagrants and Crooks ( ley de Vagos y Maleantes ), a law that the Special Rapporteur hopes will soon be abolished. 76. Torture and ill-treatment are facilitated by the rules regarding detention by law enforcement bodies which permit the PTJ to hold detainees, once handed over by the detaining body (immediately according to the law, after up to 72 hours in practice), for up to eight days. Detainees may also be at risk for the further four or even eight days during which they may be held pending a decision by the examining tribunal ( tribunal instructor ) on continuing the detention. The constitutional and legal prohibition against incommunicado detention seems in practice often not complied with. Access is sometimes denied by the detaining body, not only to family members and lawyers, but even to representatives of the Public Prosecutor's Office (fiscales ). Such denial may even be based on a refusal to acknowledge actual detention.