A/HRC/13/39/Add.5 standard practice, including on ordinary suspects. Attempts to find an explanation for this development concern the wider functioning of the criminal justice cycle and the absence of an effective system of checks and balances. Prosecutors and judges often rubberstamp applications for extended police custody, without looking into the merits of the individual request. The motives may vary, but individual prosecutors often seem to lack the “professional distance” from police authorities and rather engage in a joint effort to fight crime, while neglecting their fundamental rights obligations. 90. This leads to suspects being exposed to their interrogators for weeks and months and finding themselves in a situation which is generally dominated by a feeling of vulnerability and fear. In many of the police stations I visited, there was a palpable level of fear which manifested itself inter alia by the strong reluctance of detainees to speak with me. Once detainees were transferred from the police station to a remand facility, I received numerous credible allegations from detainees who did not dare to raise them earlier due to fear of reprisals. 91. Prolonged detention in police cells raises further serious concern regarding the conditions of detentions. Police cells are by design not suitable for extended periods of custody and lack the necessary space and other facilities needed in order to ensure adequate conditions of detention. Often, detainees in police custody are not even provided food or water. Furthermore, the practice of excessive length of police custody contributes to overcrowding which in turn sets the ground for numerous other problems including hygiene, health, bedding and privacy. 92. Another consequence of long periods of police custody is that torture traces may have already disappeared once a detainee is transferred to a remand prison. Against this background, an investigative officer may be more tempted to coerce a confession since no external authority will be able to see any traces. The possibility of securing any medical evidence is more difficult, and the establishment of accountability further unlikely. (iii) Inadmissibility of evidence obtained under torture 93. The inadmissibility of evidence obtained under torture is one of the most crucial safeguards against abuse in the criminal justice system. Its purpose is twofold: first, given that the vast majority of torture is inflicted in the course of criminal investigations with the purpose to extract a confession, the safeguard intends to remove a prime incentive for torture. Second, evidence obtained under torture is highly unreliable concerning the veracity of the statements obtained. Declaring the evidence inadmissible helps ensure that no innocent person is convicted. 94. The inadmissibility of evidence obtained under torture finds its strongest expression in article 15 CAT which stipulates that each State party shall “ensure that any statement which is established to have been made as a result of torture shall not be invoked as evidence in any proceedings”. Similarly, article 14 (3) (g) ICCPR provides that everyone has the right “not to be compelled to testify against himself or to confess guilt” and includes also testimonies obtained by the infliction of CIDT as inadmissible. The Human Rights Committee expands on the resulting obligations for States and holds that “It is important for the discouragement of violations under article 7 that the law must prohibit the use of admissibility in judicial proceedings of statements or confessions obtained through torture or other prohibited treatment”.55 95. On the legal level, most States I visited seemed to have complied with this provision by and large. However there were significant deviations which tended to undermine the 55 CAT/C/CR/33/3, 2004, para. 5 (d). 27