cising authority must not be permitted to “avoid accountability or escape criminal responsibility for torture or ill-treatment committed by subordinates” where they knew or should have known that such conduct was likely to occur.72 1 UN TREATY BODIES The CAT has not specified a minimum penalty that would appropriately reflect the gravity of the crime of torture, although one author, through an analysis of the views expressed by individual Committee members, concluded that a custodial sentence of between six and twenty years will generally be considered appropriate.73 In Urra Guridi v Spain, the Committee found that the imposition of light penalties on three Civil Guards who had been found guilty of torture were incompatible with the duty to impose appropriate punishment, and therefore constituted a violation of Article 4(2).74 Furthermore, the Committee considered that the pardons later granted to the Civil Guards in Urra Guridi v Spain had the practical effect of allowing torture to go unpunished and encouraging its repetition. The pardons therefore constituted a violation of Article 2(1) of the Convention, which requires that States take effective measures to prevent torture.75 By similar reasoning, the Committee considers that amnesties for the crime of torture are incompatible with States’ obligations under Article 4. The Committee has stated: “In order to ensure that perpetrators of torture do not enjoy impunity, [States parties must] ensure the investigation and, where appropriate, the prosecution of those accused of having committed the crime of torture, and ensure that amnesty laws exclude torture from their reach.”76 This obligation to apply criminal law to all acts of torture is unlimited in time, so no statute of limitations should apply to the crime of torture.77 CAT, General Comment No. 2, §26. Chris Ingelse, The UN Committee against Torture: An Assessment, Kluwer Law International, 2001, p. 342. 74 Urra Guridi v Spain, CAT Communication No. 212/2002, 17 May 2005, §6.7. The sentences imposed on the Civil Guards, who had been found guilty of torturing a suspected member of ETA, had been reduced by the Spanish Supreme Court from four years’ imprisonment to one, prior to the granting of pardons by the Council of Ministers. 75 Ibid. §6.6. 76 CAT, Concluding Observations on Azerbaijan, UN Doc. A/55/44, 1999, §69(c). See also CAT, Concluding Observations on Senegal, UN Doc. A/51/44, 1996, §117; CAT, Concluding Observations on Chile, UN Doc. CAT/C/CR/32/5, 2004, §7b; CAT, Concluding Observations on Bahrain, UN Doc. CAT/CO/34/BHR, 2005, §6d; CAT, Concluding Observations on Cambodia, UN Doc. CAT/C/CR/31/7, 2005, §6. 77 See, for example, CAT, Concluding Observations on Turkey, UN Doc. CAT/C/CR/30/5, 2003, §7(c); CAT, Concluding Observations on Chile, UN Doc. CAT/C/CR/32/5, 2004, §7(f). 72 73 19