both States parties and National Preventive Mechanisms (“NPM”). Under the OPCAT, the SPT has unrestricted access to all places of detention, their installations and facilities and to all relevant information. The SPT visits police stations, prisons (military and civilian), detention centres (e.g. pre-trial detention centres, immigration detention centres, juvenile justice establishments, etc.), mental health and social care institutions and any other places where people are or may be deprived of their liberty. The contracting parties are under obligation to grant the SPT access to have private interviews with the persons deprived of their liberty, without witnesses, and to any other person who in the SPT’s view may supply relevant information including Government officials, NPMs, representatives of national human rights institutions, nongovernmental organizations, custodial staff, lawyers, doctors, etc. This added layer of monitoring is expected to put more checks on the incidents of state-sponsored torture in custodies. 8. Concluding Remarks Adrien Wayi, a journalist from the Congo, was held for 12 days in October 1997 in the Bacongo area of Brazzaville by one of the warring militias in the Republic of Congo. To express his experience in the cell, he tells: “I was taken, blindfolded, to the entrance to my cell where the ‘Panther’ was waiting for me […] He took off the blindfold and started 62