S Africa should try apartheid era torturers-UN body

GENEVA, Nov 25 (Reuters) South Africa should put on trial those suspected of torturing prisoners under apartheid and pay compensation to victims, a United Nations human rights body said.

While welcoming the work of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which probed apartheid era crimes, the U.N. Committee against Torture said ''de facto impunity'' persisted for those responsible for acts of torture.

''(South Africa) should consider bringing to justice persons responsible for the institutionalisation of torture as an instrument of oppression to perpetuate apartheid,'' the committee said yesterday in its first report on South Africa.

Its conclusions were issued at the end of a three-week meeting at which its 10 independent experts examined the records of seven signatory countries to the 1984 anti-torture treaty -- Burundi, Guyana, Hungary, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and Tajikistan.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up by former President Nelson Mandela to probe crimes committed on both sides of the apartheid struggle. It finished its work in 2003.

It granted amnesty to about 1,000 applicants but many perpetrators snubbed attempts at the truth, and although it asked police to investigate several hundred suspects, only a handful have since been tried.

South Africa's chief prosecutor recently said he planned to charge some of the leading perpetrators of apartheid crimes although critics have said it may be too little too late.

The UN body, which monitors compliance with a global treaty banning torture and other cruel or inhuman treatment, also expressed concern at the high number of deaths in detention and at overcrowding in jails in today's South Africa.

It said it was worried by ''widespread'' acts of violence against women and children, especially rapes and domestic violence, and the lack of any effective state policy to combat the problem.

On Tajikistan, another of the 142 states to have ratified the treaty, the committee said that it had received ''numerous allegations concerning widespread, routine use of torture,'' particularly to extract confessions in criminal trials.

There were also numerous allegations of statements made under torture being used as evidence in court.

The committee said it was concerned about the independence of the Tajik judiciary given that the country's president could appoint and dismiss judges.

With regard to Mexico, it said it had received ''worrying information'' about cases of arbitrary detention and about use of excessive force by police.

It also noted that military tribunals were being allowed to try armed forces' personnel accused of torturing civilians when such cases should always be heard by a civilian court.

REUTERS BDP PM0850