E/CN.4/1993/26 page 117 Uruguay Information transmitted to the Government 543. In a letter of 12 November 1992 the Special Rapporteur informed the Government that he had received reports that persons arrested on suspicion of having committed minor offences had been tortured or maltreated in Montevideo police headquarters and in police stations in poor quarters where the crime rate is high. The types of torture mentioned in complaints include beatings, sometimes with truncheons, near suffocation, electric shocks and threats of more brutal torture or of death. In many cases victims did not lodge judicial complaints for fear of reprisals or through lack of confidence in the administration of justice. Only in very rare cases were the torturers identified and tried. The following individual cases were transmitted: (a) Adrián Marcel Lombardo was arrested on 21 March 1990 and taken to the homicide squad at Montevideo police headquarters where he was given electric shocks on various parts of the body. He was released the following day; (b) Alberto Périz Medina was arrested on 3 August 1990 and taken to the Montevideo section 5 police station. He was stripped and beaten severely on the chest and ears. Months later he was still partly deaf as a result of the blows. Although the injuries were attested to by a medical report, the case was shelved by the court in April 1991; (c) Ricardo Costa, Vicente Vinagre and Néstor Moreira, employees at the SEVEL steelworks, were arrested on 31 August 1990 and taken to Montevideo police headquarters. They were hooded, threatened and badly beaten on various parts of the body. They were released a few hours later; (d) Ricardo Fabra Riverol was arrested on 5 January 1991 in La Cruz de Carrasco, Montevideo. In a vehicle taking him to police headquarters he was repeatedly beaten and was threatened with electric shock treatment. A medical report attests to the existence of bruises; (e) Guillermo Alejandro Belsito Luna and Diego Washington Martínez Rancel, age 16, were arrested on 6 January 1991 by three policemen who beat them severely in the street and then in section 9 police station before releasing them a few hours later; (f) Julio Correa, age 18, and Alejandro Maidana, age 17, were arrested in Montevideo on 9 January 1991 and taken to the 1st section police station. The former was beaten, handcuffed, dragged over the floor and threatened with execution. The latter was beaten with a rubber truncheon on the neck and other parts of the body. Both were released a few hours later. 544. At its eighth session (27 April-8 May 1992) the Committee against Torture examined the Government's answers to the Committee's questions regarding the country's initial periodic report. The report is reproduced in document CAT/5/Add.30.

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