CAT/C/29/D/193/2001 page 5 During almost all the time I was being questioned, I was blindfolded, and when I wasn’t, they forced me to lower my head, even though I was able to see the head of one of them twice and I could recognize him. Alcala de Henares prison, 7 April 1998. 2.6 At the end of his period in custody, on 25 March 1998, Mr. Azurmendi appeared before examining magistrate No. 6 of the National High Court in Madrid. He lodged a complaint relating to the torture to which he had been subjected during his time in custody and retracted his earlier statements. This complaint is still being investigated. 2.7 While being held in Madrid prison, Mr. Azurmendi was also examined by the prison medical services, and a court-ordered medical report was delivered on 18 October 1998. These medical reports and the testimony of a number of detainees arrested on the same day as Mr. Azurmendi corroborate his allegations of torture and ill-treatment. 2.8 After the complainant had been implicated in the statements made by Mr. Azurmendi on 23 and 24 March 1998, the Spanish procurator’s office stipulated that proceedings against the complainant would be subject to the evidence. As the results were negative, Mr. Ismael Moreno Chamaro, central examining magistrate No. 2 attached to the National High Court in Madrid, issued an order on 29 October 1998 that the complainant should be imprisoned and committed for trial. On that basis, the judge issued a request for the extradition of the complainant on 22 December 1998. By means of a note verbale dated 10 March 1999, the Spanish Government, through its embassy, requested the French authorities to extradite the complainant. On 15 June 1999, she was placed in detention pending extradition in Fresnes prison. The request for extradition was heard in public session on 24 May 2000 by the first indictment division of the Paris Court of Appeal which, on 21 June 2000, ruled partially5 in favour of extradition in respect of the acts described by Spain as 19 attempted terrorist murders. 2.9 The complainant emphasizes that the request for extradition did not contain a copy of the statement that Mr. Azurmendi made on 25 March 1998 to the examining magistrate of the National High Court. In that regard, the complainant’s counsel argued before the indictment division of the Paris Court of Appeal that it was unacceptable that, since the charges carried very severe prison terms, the requesting State had not mentioned the statement in which Mr. Azurmendi retracted everything that he had said and also stated that he did not know the complainant. 2.10 The counsel also argued: [T]he medical examinations carried out while Mr. Azurmendi was in custody and was being transported to the hospital casualty department, the statements made on 25 March 1998, the official medical observations recorded on his arrival at Madrid prison, the medical report provided on 18 October 1998, the complaint lodged and the testimony of certain persons detained the same day show that he was subjected to ill-treatment while being questioned by the Civil Guard. Such treatment, apart from being clearly in violation of domestic instruments in any State governed by the rule of law, is further prohibited by the international conventions that France has ratified, in particular by article 3 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which provides that no one shall be subjected to cruel,