132. Therefore, given the series of precise and concordant probative elements examined, the Court has reached the conviction that, following his arrest on August 6, 1997, Mr. Ruiz Fuentes was subjected to acts of physical torture that met the three requirements listed by the Court in violation of Article 5(1) and (2) of the American Convention, in relation to Article 1(1) of this instrument, which also constituted the violation of Articles 1 and 6 of the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture. b.2 Death row 133. As a preliminary consideration in relation to the State’s argument that the death sentence was commuted to the maximum term of imprisonment, the Court recalls that, as it has indicated above, the State has not provided any evidence to prove this point. However, the State did advise that, based on a decision of this Court during the processing of provisional measures,167 it had ordered the provisional suspension of the death penalty on February 15, 2005.168 In this regard, the Court notes that although the imposition of the death penalty was suspended owing to the said provisional measure, this did not result in the certainty that it would not be executed in the future and, therefore, the convicted person would continue in the expectation that there was a real possibility of this occurring. 134. The Court must now determine whether, in this specific case, the acts suffered by Mr. Ruiz Fuentes, following his death sentence, constituted cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in light of Article 5(1) and (2) of the Convention. 135. This Court has had the occasion to rule on the so-called “death row phenomenon” in the cases of Hilaire, Constantine and Benjamin et al. v. Trinidad and Tobago 169 and Raxcacó Reyes v. Guatemala.170 In addition, the European Court of Human Rights,171 the universal system of human rights,172 and several domestic courts173 have noted that the so-called “death row” violates the right to personal integrity owing to the anguish endured by those who have been condemned to death, a situation that gives rise to psychological trauma owing to the ever-present and mounting anguish of awaiting execution of the death penalty; 174 consequently, it is considered cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. The Court notes that, in both the case of Hilaire, Constantine and Benjamin et al. v. Trinidad and Tobago and the case of Raxcacó Reyes v. Guatemala, it assessed the expert opinions provided concerning the specific detention conditions of those sentenced to death and victims in the said cases, as well as concerning the specific impact on them, which led to a violation Cf. Case of Raxcacó Reyes and others with regard to Guatemala. Provisional measures. Order of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights of August 30, 2004. 168 Cf. Merits Report of the Commission of July 30, 2017, para. 161 (merits file, folio 39). 169 Cf. Case of Hilaire, Constantine and Benjamin et al. v. Trinidad and Tobago. Merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of June 21, 2002. Series C No. 94. 170 Cf. Case of Raxcacó Reyes v. Guatemala, supra, paras. 100 to 102. 171 Cf. ECHR, Case of Öcalan v. Turkey [GC], no. 46221/99, Judgment of May 12, 2005, paras. 166 to 169, and Case of Bader and Kanbor v. Sweden, no. 13284/04, Judgment of November 8, 2005, paras. 42 to 48. 172 Cf. United Nations. Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, A/67/279 (2012), para. 42. The death row phenomenon is defined as follows: “It consists of a combination of circumstances that produce severe mental trauma and physical deterioration in prisoners under sentence of death. Those circumstances include the lengthy and anxiety-ridden wait for uncertain outcomes, isolation, drastically reduced human contact and even the physical conditions in which some inmates are held. Death row conditions are often worse than those for the rest of the prison population, and prisoners on death row are denied many basic human necessities.” See also, Human Rights Committee, Larrañaga v. Philippines, CCPR/C/87/D/1421/2005 (2006), para. 7.11, and Mwamba v. Zambia, CCPR/C/98/D/1520/2006 (2010), para. 6.8. 173 Cf. Judgment of the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe of June 24, 1993, in Catholic Commissioner for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe v. Attorney General (4) SA 239 (ZS); Supreme Court of Uganda in Attorney General v. Susan Kigula and 417 others (Constitutional Appeal No. 3 of 2006), 2009; Supreme Court of Zimbabwe, Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe v the Attorney General and Others, (1993), 2LRC 277, and Court of Appeal of Kenya, Godfrey Mutiso v. Republic (2010). See also, Supreme Court of Canada, United States v. Burns, 2001 SCC 7, paras. 118 to 123. 174 Cf. ECHR. Case of Soering v. The United Kingdom, no. 14038/88, Judgment of July 7, 1989, paras. 56, 81 and 111. 167 33