- 58 C. Children deprived of their liberty 96. At the outset, the CPT would like to recall that one of the cardinal principles enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child60 and in the European Rules for juvenile offenders61 is that juveniles should only be deprived of their liberty as a last resort and for the shortest possible period of time and that in all action concerning them, their best interests shall be a primary consideration.62 1. Juveniles in police custody 97. In the course of the visit, the CPT’s delegation met several detained juveniles (mostly Roma) who alleged that they had been ill-treated by police officers upon apprehension or while held in police detention. Further, they claimed that they had been questioned and made to sign documents (confessions or other statements) without the presence of a lawyer and/or a trusted person. For example, a juvenile met by the delegation stated that after being apprehended on the street in the morning, he was taken to Alexander Street Headquarters in Athens (GADA) and subsequently to the Sub-directorate of Crimes against Life and Property on the 11th floor where he was placed in a small narrow cell with a mattress on the floor. He alleged that he had to remove his clothes and was subjected to slaps to the head, punches to the belly and truncheon blows to the thighs by four officers apparently in order to get him to make a confession. Afterwards he was transferred to the Department of Special Handling of Minors on the 3rd floor of the Headquarters building where he was kept for nearly three weeks. An examination of the custody records at the GADA showed that the juvenile was effectively held from 13 November to 1 December 2014 on the 3rd floor. However, on several occasions he was transferred to the 11th floor; for example, from 23h55 on 13 to 01h30 on 14 November and later that same day from 10h40 to 21h40. The mere fact of initiating an interview with a juvenile at midnight without the presence of a lawyer and/or trusted person when the juvenile had been in custody the whole day raises serious suspicions as to the motives of the police interviewers and lends credence to the allegations of ill-treatment made by the juvenile. Another juvenile, apprehended at home, alleged that several officers had subjected him to blows with truncheons and kicks to the body in an office on the first floor of the police station and that one police officer had squeezed his index finger in a pair of pliers. After seeing the judge, he was transferred to the juvenile section on the 3rd floor of the GADA where he was held for 10 days. Upon examination by the delegation’s doctor some two months after the incident, the juvenile had multiple irregular scars on both shins which were consistent with repeated blunt trauma. 60 61 62 Articles 3 and 37.b of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Rules 5 and 10 of the European Rules for juvenile offenders subject to sanctions or measures (Recommendation CM/Rec(2008)11). See General Comment No. 14 (2013) on the right of the child to have his or her best interests taken as a primary consideration (Article 3, paragraph 1) by the Committee on the Rights of the Child. See also the 1985 United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice (“Beijing Rules”), the 1990 United Nations Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty (“Havana Rules”) and the 1990 United Nations Guidelines for the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency (“Riyadh Guidelines”).