A/HRC/22/53/Add.1 75. Juveniles are not afforded most procedural safeguards, including that of informing their family of their arrest without significant delay. It is unclear whether juvenile offenders are allowed to hold private interviews with court-appointed legal counsel and at what stage they are guaranteed access to legal counsel of their choice. The Special Rapporteur learned that cases of mistreatment for the purpose of extracting a confession from underage defendants go unreported owing to fear of reprisal. 76. According to credible reports, there is no strict separation between adults and juveniles in pretrial detention facilities or police cells outside the capital. 3. Inmates serving life imprisonment 77. Despite the moratorium on the death penalty of 2004, both the Constitution and the Criminal Code retain provisions for the death penalty. 78. Currently, prisoners who have been sentenced to life imprisonment are housed in various pretrial detention facilities. The prison regime and physical conditions are especially harsh for those serving a life sentence compared with those in the general prison population. Prisoners serving a life sentence are confined in virtual isolation in their cells for up to 23 hours a day in small, cramped, unventilated cells, often in extreme temperatures, and they are subject to inadequate nutrition and sanitation arrangements; denial of contact with lawyers and only rare contact with family members; excessive use of handcuffing or other types of shackles or restraints; physical or verbal abuse; lack of appropriate health care (physical and mental); and denial of access to books, newspapers, exercise, education, employment and or any other type of prison activities. Indeed, the recent changes made to the law actually introduced unnecessary and inexplicably harsh restrictions for family contacts (only once a year) and on parcel delivery. 4. Non-refoulement and extradition 79. The Special Rapporteur received credible reports that individuals forcibly returned or extradited from other countries to Tajikistan had been subjected to torture or other illtreatment upon return. In some cases, these returns were conducted despite the request of the European Court of Human Rights to take interim measures to stay extradition pending a judgement by the Court. 80. The Special Rapporteur heard testimonies pointing to a pattern of kidnapping, reappearance, remand and forcible return to Tajikistan, incommunicado detention and solitary confinement in the buildings of the State Committee for National Security or the Sixth Department, or transfer to pretrial detention facilities under their jurisdiction, and interrogations over the course of several months. In other cases, trials appeared to be used as a formality to extend temporary detention. Allegations made by the victims that, if extradited, they ran the risk of being tortured or of fabricated charges, were not given any consideration. 81. Tajikistan is party to regional agreements, mainly in the field of security cooperation, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, although its domestic legislation does not contain provisions to implement the principle of non-refoulement as contained in article 3 of the Convention against Torture. Under the Code of Criminal Procedure, the Office of the Prosecutor General is the only body with jurisdiction over issues relating to extradition. There are no clear procedures in the Code for challenging the legality of extradition and deportation proceedings before a court. 82. The Special Rapporteur learned that, when extraditions are carried out, reference is often made to the Convention on Legal Assistance and Legal Relations in Civil, Family and Criminal Matters (the Minsk Convention) and the an agreement on visa-free travel. While it appears that CIS citizens in other CIS member States enjoy rights similar to those of 15