CAT/C/29/D/193/2001 page 12 3.5.14 Moreover, reliable reports from international human rights bodies indicate that the ill-treatment regularly inflicted by Spanish officers, intentionally and with professionalism, in order to obtain confessions or information or to cause terror, are serious enough to be classified as torture under article 1 of the Convention against Torture and the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. 3.5.15 The impunity enjoyed by torturers on the part of the Spanish authorities is an additional risk factor. Indeed, such impunity encourages perpetrators of torture and ill-treatment to persist in their acts of violence. Often, victims’ complaints are filed away and never followed up; the proceedings are very long; sentencing of torturers is very rare; when sentences are handed down by Spanish courts, torturers are most often pardoned by the authorities; certain torturers have even been promoted. The fact that officers who practise torture are not punished creates a feeling of impunity, which encourages the persistence of the practice of torture. 3.5.16 As the Committee against Torture has already noted, statements obtained as a result of torture are accepted by Spanish courts, particularly the National High Court, which is a special court that deals with crimes and acts of terrorism. Moreover, the judgements handed down by the National High Court are not subject to appeal, in contravention of article 14, paragraph 5, of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; only an appeal for cassation is possible before the Supreme Court, which refuses to re-examine the lawfulness of the evidence accepted in first instance by the National High Court. 3.5.17 Finally, concerning the situation in Spain, it should be recalled the Committee against Torture stated that, pursuant to article 2, paragraph 2, of the Convention, “no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether … internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture”. Thus, the situation of acute conflict in the Basque Country cannot be invoked to justify the practice of torture by the Spanish security forces and the use by Spanish courts of evidence obtained as a result of torture. The State party’s observations 4.1 The State party submitted its views in a note verbale dated 29 April 2002. 4.2 The State party notes that the complainant had been arrested for possession of weapons and was suspected of being a member of ETA. The complainant was sentenced by a judgement of the Paris Correctional Court to two and a half years’ imprisonment for offences involving the transport and possession of weapons, the holding of false administrative documents and participation in a conspiracy with a view to preparing an act of terrorism. 4.3 The first request to extradite the complainant, dated 15 September 1997,7 was based on her membership of ETA and on the fact that she had created the infrastructure of the “Madrid Commando”, which carried out attacks in the Spanish capital. For this reason, the complainant had been placed in detention pending extradition on 21 October 1997 in Fresnes prison. By a judgement of 18 March 1998, the indictment division of the Paris Court of Appeal issued a ruling in favour of her extradition and the Court of Cassation rejected her appeal against that ruling on 23 June 1998.