17 Their next of kin saw how the food was made there and started bringing it themselves. In cellblock number 2 there was a chamber for attorneys. It was the only place that looked all right. There was conjugal visit on Wednesdays. The conjugal visit was in the cell. It was a cell with fourteen bunk beds, fourteen women and fourteen men. His next of kin told him that the search was bad, that they took liberties with women and forced them to immoral acts. The staff in charge of keeping watch was formed by inmates of the Ministry of Justice. There were about twelve guards for all the prison and two for each cellblock. The disciplinary regime was bad. All the inmates had to pay every time there was somebody injured. The guards themselves grabbed and ill-treated the inmates; they took them to be punished, they hit them and poured water and salt over them after the beatings. The guards used beams, sticks, poles and posts from the beds to hit the inmates with. When the visit was over and visitors left the penitentiary, the prison officials blocked all the doors and called the roll; then they would enter the cells and break all the things that the next of kin had brought: sheets, curtains and food. The witness never had a medical check during all the time he was arrested. On November 27, 1992, at about 5 in the morning, when the inmates were watching President Carlos Andrés Pérez on television speaking about the military revolt, the people in the cellblock started saying that the government had fallen. The policemen in the sentry box opened the cells and asked the prisoners for money to let them free. If the inmates paid, they were freed, and those that did not pay were killed. They charged to let them escape. There was a massacre there, those who put out their heads were shot in the forehead. There were snipers. At about 10 or 11 in the morning the police saw the holes that had been dug, and many prisoners were killed so as to justify that many had attempted to escape. All this lasted nearly two days. From zone 2 they shot towards the inside to kill the inmates. As they were all terrified, they locked the door. The policemen of zone 2, the guards and the governor of the prison were killing prisoners with machine guns. The inmates shouted to their next of kin ”call the human rights, they are killing us.” The National Guard took over the prison when everything had already finished. They did not shoot, they were the ones that moved the inmates. Those who were wounded were killed on the stairs, they told them to go out because they would be taken to hospital, but they were taken away and killed instead. They did not want to have witnesses. Those inmates who had been injured never received assistance, only the assistance provided by the other inmates. He could speak with his family two weeks after the events had taken place. His next of kin were in a state of confusion as they did not know who was alive and who was dead. The witness does not know about any fact-finding proceeding. g) Statement of Osmar Guillermo Martinez-Rivas, ex -inmate When the events took place, the witness had been in that prision for 22 months, from 1991 to May 1993. The witness was confined in a place called “observation cellblock,” which was overcrowded; for example, he was in a cell where 80 other inmates lived, they all slept on the floor, on mattresses or small mats. This cellblock was about 40 by 40m large and had no cells; it was one spacious chamber, and each