E/CN.4/2003/68/Add.2 page 18 seriously with its personnel suspected of having or found to have violated human rights, and that this had led to some prosecutions. Despite requests to these three interlocutors, no statistics regarding the type of violations committed by law enforcement personnel were provided to the Special Rapporteur. 56. At the pre-trial detention phase, there is no independent body capable of investigating torture complaints as the General Procurator’s Office would ultimately be in charge of the investigations. In particular, the Special Rapporteur notes with serious concern that in the very high profile case of Iskander Khudoberganov et al. (see appendix II), the General Procurator denied having received any complaints regarding alleged torture and other forms of ill-treatment. The Special Rapporteur notes that, according to the information he has received, not only were complaints made during the actual trial, but they were also formally forwarded by relatives of the defendants to the General Procurator’s Office. Finally, they were widely reported by human rights organizations, including through press releases. 57. It must also be noted that there is no legal obligation for a judge to order an investigation into complaints made during a trial. It is reported that a judge would at most call upon the officer allegedly responsible and ask her/him to testify in court that s/he did not torture the suspect. Other evidence, such as medical reports or registry records, is disregarded. Even when the defendant bears visible marks of torture or ill-treatment, judges would usually conclude that torture allegations were made in an attempt to avoid being sentenced and will admit confessions as decisive evidence. 58. Widespread allegations according to which confessions are extracted by illegal means and form the basis of evidence would also seem to be substantiated by the extremely small number of acquittals. According to non-governmental sources, the acquittal of a person is seen as evidence of negligent work on the part of the investigator, the procurator and the judge in the case, which in turn would have a negative impact on their professional career, with the possibility of the institution of disciplinary proceedings. Therefore, once a person is charged, investigators are willing to resort to illegal means to obtain a confession, without which a procurator would allegedly refuse to bring a case to court. The lack of (scientific) equipment and training and an overload of cases due to the reported 100 per cent success rate demanded by the authorities (“solved cases” criterion for promotion) is also believed to contribute to a disproportionate reliance of investigators on confessions as evidence. Furthermore, in cases of acquittal, complaints are alleged to be lodged by the procurator against the judge (see examples in appendix II) who may be dismissed after three complaints. The legal provision allowing for the dismissal of judges against whom complaints had been lodged by three procurators was reportedly removed at the September 2001 session of Parliament. Therefore, it is believed that judges rely extensively on procurators’ indictments, even if torture complaints have been raised during trial. It is said that persons charged will inevitably be convicted as it is always considered possible that law enforcement officials will resort to illegal means to obtain a confession which will then become the basis for the conviction. 59. The Minister of Justice indicated that in his opinion, the acquittal rate was insufficient, and that this problem would be solved once the judiciary was truly independent. On the other hand, the General Procurator stated that there were very few cases of acquittal because investigations, under the supervision of his Office, were properly conducted and would