CAT/C/48/D/453/2011 Torture thereafter, and did so only once the Constitutional Court dismissed his application for amparo against his criminal conviction. It also considers references by the complainant to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to be irrelevant. 4.3 The complaint is based on an imprecise presentation of the facts. Force was used during the complainant’s arrest to the degree needed to subdue him, following normal arrest procedure. There was a warrant for his arrest and he remained under the supervision of court officials throughout proceedings. The regime of incommunicado detention applied in line with the State party’s law restricted only his right to choose a lawyer to assist him initially at the police station and the right to inform persons of his choice that he had been arrested. Family members, however, were in fact aware of his arrest. He was held incommunicado for only a short period of time, from 24 to 28 October 2002, after which he was handed over to the judicial authorities. The complainant’s allegations that the criminal proceedings and his conviction had been motivated by the interest shown in his case in political circles and by the public, and the judges’ sense of collegial solidarity, were baseless, given that at no time did he object to the participation of any of the judges responsible for trying him. 4.4 With regard to the alleged violation of article 15 of the Convention, the complainant has failed to provide even circumstantial evidence that his statement was made under torture, but simply alleged that the State party did not duly investigate his claim of having been tortured. 4.5 The criminal division of the National High Court did look into whether the complainant’s statement to the Basque police was obtained under torture. It noted that the complainant retracted his statement in court. It concluded that a judicial investigation of the facts had been conducted and confirmed that there was nothing to indicate that such a crime had been committed. Five police officers testified separately that the complainant had been represented by a lawyer and informed of his rights, including the right to draft or dictate his statement or some of his replies. He did not complain of being ill-treated or tortured in between statements, which were read by the detainee and lawyer without comment. It was also established that the police officers testified during the trial proceedings under “precautionary numbers”, as provided for in article 4.1 of Organic Law No. 19/1994 on the protection of witnesses and experts in criminal cases. The lawyer who assisted the complainant at the police station on 26 and 27 October indicated in three statements that he had not witnessed any irregularities, and that otherwise he would have reported them; that the detainee had replied freely and spontaneously to questions; that the complainant had provided detailed replies in his third statement on information gathered about the routine movements of Judge Lidón Corbi; and, lastly, that both had read and signed the statement. The medical report of 25 October 2002 referred to the complainant’s claim that, at the time of his arrest, he had been thrown to the ground, kicked in the head several times and kept in uncomfortable positions that had made him feel nauseous. However, according to that report, no signs had been found of kicks to the back of the neck or of any other blows to the body. Nor did the forensic medical report of 26 October reveal any symptoms of illtreatment or injuries. Indeed, during an examination on 28 October 2002, after his release from police custody, by the forensic doctor of the First Central Examining Magistrate’s Court of the National High Court, the complainant refused to undress to be examined and, appearing calm and clear-headed, stated that there was nothing wrong with him. The complainant’s defence counsel participated fully throughout the proceedings in the National High Court. 4.6 The two dissenting opinions in respect of the Supreme Court decision of 4 December 2006 on the complainant’s application for cassation do not maintain that the complainant’s statement was obtained under torture. Rather, the judges discuss in their opinions whether, in general, statements made in police stations that are subsequently GE.12-43762 9