E/CN.4/2001/66/Add.2 page 56 (i) Where allegations of torture or other forms of ill-treatment are raised by a defendant during trial, the burden of proof should shift to the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the confession was not obtained by unlawful means, including torture or similar ill-treatment; (j) Complaints of ill-treatment, whether made to the police or other service itself or the internal affairs department of the service (corregedor) or its ombudsman (ouvidor) or a prosecutor, should be expeditiously and diligently investigated. In particular, the outcome should not be dependent only on proof in the individual case; patterns of abuse should be similarly investigated. Unless the allegation is manifestly ill-founded, those involved should be suspended from their duties pending the outcome of the investigation and any subsequent legal or disciplinary proceedings. Where a specific allegation or a pattern of acts of torture or similar ill-treatment is demonstrated, the personnel involved, including those in charge of the institution, should be peremptorily dismissed. This will involve radical purging of some services. A start could be made by purging known torturers from the period of the military Government; (k) All states should implement witness protection programmes along the lines established by the PROVITA programme for witnesses to incidents of violence by public officials, which ought to extend fully to cover persons with a previous criminal record. In cases where current inmates are at risk, they ought to be transferred to another detention facility where special measures for their security should be taken; (l) Prosecutors should bring charges under the 1997 law against torture with the frequency dictated by the scope and gravity of the problem and request that judges enforce the law’s provisions prohibiting bail of those charged. Attorneys-General, with the material support of gubernatorial and other relevant state authorities, should assign sufficient qualified and committed prosecutorial resources for the criminal investigation of torture and similar ill-treatment and for any appellate proceedings. In principle, the prosecutors in question should not be the same as those responsible for prosecuting ordinary criminality; (m) Investigations of police criminality should not be under the authority of the police themselves, in principle, an independent body with its own investigative resources and personnel. As a minimum, the Office of the Public Prosecutor should have the authority to control and direct the investigation. They should also have unrestricted access to police stations; (n) Positive consideration at the federal and state levels should be given to the proposal to create the function of investigating judge, whose task would be to safeguard the rights of persons deprived of liberty; (o) If for no other reason than to bring an end to chronic overcrowding in places of detention (a problem that building more detention places is unlikely to be able to solve), a programme of awareness-raising within the judiciary is imperative to ensure that this profession, at the heart of the rule of law and the guarantee of human rights, becomes as sensitive to the need to protect the rights of suspects, and indeed of convicted prisoners, as it evidently is to repress criminality. In particular, the judiciary should take some responsibility for the conditions and treatment which befall those they order to remain in pre-trial detention or sentence to terms of