A/HRC/45/CRP.11 officers deemed Mr. Albán’s death a suicide, although forensic information raises doubts about this conclusion, as detailed below. 290. The accounts of former detainees indicate that from 2014 to 2018, SEBIN officers commited torture in the presence or under the supervision of more senior officers, including the Chief of the Strategic Investigations Directorate and other high-ranking commissioners in his unit. SEBIN officers usually tortured detainees in offices and stairwells in El Helicoide, generally in the “strategic investigation” area. Interrogations, including acts of torture, led by the Counter Intelligence Directorate, were carried out on the tenth floor of the Plaza Venezuela building. SEBIN Detention Conditions 291. Political detainees were held in pre-trial detention. In several cases, SEBIN failed to release detainees awaiting trial, despite court orders approving their release. 733 This was the case, for example, of lawyer and activist Antonia Turbay, who was not released until August 2020, despite a judicial release order issued in June 2019. A former SEBIN employee confirmed the Mission, that, “There were people in El Helicoide with release orders and they wouldn’t let them out”.734 Another witness told the Mission that some SEBIN officers would charge non-political detainees a fee to implement their release orders.735 292. Political detainees were held in one of two SEBIN buildings, both in Caracas: SEBIN Headquarters at Plaza Venezuela or El Helicoide. The building in Plaza Venezuela has an extensive detention area, referred to as La Tumba (the Tomb). It is a basement located five floors below ground initially designed as offices for the Caracas Metro. La Tumba has approximately seven cells. The Mission did not document any female detainees in this centre. In La Tumba, detainees were subjected to what is known as “cellular isolation” and often held in prolonged solitary confinement.736 293. Those previously held in La Tumba told the Mission that they had been kept in cells measuring approximately 2 x 3 metres, located 15 metres underground with no air or natural ventilation. Accounts described cells with cement beds, in which air conditioning maintained very cold temperatures. Artificial light shone 24 hours a day and all walls were painted white. Former detainee Lorent Saleh described it in this way: I was in a white sarcophagus, like a blind man, for months and months […]. The isolation, it is so strong that you even doubt if you are alive. When they take away your sounds, when you do not see colours and you are in a cold temperature that forces you to tense your body, how do you know that you are alive? I used to hit myself to feel pain. The pain was an affirmation that I was still alive. 294. There were no clocks, which caused detainees to lose the notion of time. Some marked the time by the sound of the metro. Some cells had 24-hour surveillance. At night, detainees had to relieve themselves inside the cell in a plastic container or in a newspaper. Former detainees complained of gastrointestinal problems, fever, infected skin lesions, joint pain due to lack of mobility, painful dryness of the skin due to the cold and suffering panic attacks. At least two individuals interviewed by the Mission tried to commit suicide in La Tumba. 295. El Helicoide is a 1950s-era spiral-shaped building originally built as a shopping centre in central Caracas. It now houses SEBIN administrative offices, dormitories for SEBIN officers and a detention area. It was not built to function as a prison and lacks the basic installations required for adequate hygiene, sanitation and recreation. The detention areas are composed of both formal cells and areas including stairwells and bathrooms adapted to hold additional prisoners. Individuals are segregated by sex, but not on the severity of the crime committed. Women make up around 10 per cent of the detainee population and most are held together in one cell. 733 734 735 736 80 Including the cases of Antonia Turbay, Case 12: Inez Gonzales, Case 7: Geraldine Chacón. Mission Interview C2HH03 in June 2020. Mission Interview C2EE14 in July 2020. See video 14 Lawyers SEBIN site available at https://www.sebin.site/en/