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31. As regards the 4 cases of torture by prison officials, 3 of them involved

infliction of bodily harm on detainees to force to confess of having in

possession prohibited items, i.e. narcotic drugs and mobile phones, while

the other one involved punishment of a detainee for inappropriate

behavior and disobedience to prison official’s order. In each of the 4 cases,

a procedure was instituted either by the Prison Chief or by a Correctional

Inspector to investigate the allegations. In one case, the prison officials

received a punishment of extra guarding duty of 2 days but with

extenuating circumstances, the punishment was reduced to

admonishment. In other two cases, no physical abuse was found and in

the last case, the NHRCT did not receive the investigation report from the

authorities concerned.

32. From the information provided by the concerned authorities, the

NHRCT has an observation that although action was taken to investigate

the complaints, it was done mostly by prison officials. The information

obtained from the investigation was largely from prison staff and detainees

who were assigned to assist them. Since the assisting detainees were under

the command of prison officials, the fear of getting reprisal from prison

officials might prevent them from telling the truth. This is reflected in one

of the case where the information about the allegations provided to the

NHRCT Sub-Committee on Investigation of Complaints on Violations of the

Rights Relating to Criminal Justice by the witnesses who were detainees