E/CN.4/1999/63/Add.2 page 19 (h) The Supreme Council of Military Justice (CSJM) reviews sentences handed down by the court-martial as a result of the aforementioned “remedy of annulment” only when the penalty imposed is 30 years' deprivation of liberty or more; no appeal to a civil court is possible. A bill to remedy this situation, submitted in 1995, was shelved without discussion; (i) Lawyers question the short period allowed for preparing the defence. The United States citizen, Lori Berenson, said “during my statement, I had no lawyer and, during the trial, the only thing they asked me was whether I intended to appeal, as the sentence was ready” (quoted by permission). 4. Restrictions on the use of particular forms of evidence, primarily witness evidence 94. The current text of article 13 of Act No. 25.475 prohibits persons involved in the drafting of the police report and “repenters” from appearing as witnesses; this is a violation of the right of defence, as provided for in article 14, paragraph 3 (e), of the Covenant. Moreover, this provision becomes a guarantee of impunity for any official who engaged in torture and other prohibited forms of treatment during interrogations. 95. All evidence is not given equal weight. The Working Group questioned a person sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment for the offence of terrorism, in whose case the only evidence was documents found in his home and whose authorship he denied, adding a verifiable fact: another person had lived in the house before and, when he moved in, the documents were already there. The police graphological evidence supports the theory that the documents were by the accused, but a private expert study shows the opposite. The Working Group has no details to enable it to believe either the accused or the police, but finds that it is contrary to the norm, embodied in the Covenant, that the court hear expert testimony requested by the defence. In the Gutiérrez Vivanco case, referred to above, a young man with a disabling heart condition was accused and convicted of armed assault on the basis of a police sworn statement, despite the fact that neither the witnesses nor the victims recognized him. 5. Repentance Act 96. To combat terrorism, the Government has encouraged members of subversive organizations to dissociate themselves from those groups. The aim was “to pacify the country, eliminate the problem of subversion and give those on the wrong track of terrorism an opportunity by providing them with guarantees of safety and privacy within the unconditional framework of human rights”. 97. The first Act aimed at pacifying the country was Act No. 25.499 of 16 May 1992, which established three benefits for deserters: (a) a reduction in sentence for a person who abandons terrorism and confesses to the acts in which he participated; (b) exemption from punishment for the person providing information leading to the group being put out of action; (c) a suspension of sentence for a convicted person providing information leading to the routing of a terrorist group. This Act does not apply to those