25 they will be released immediately. If the contrary occurs, the corresponding criminal procedures will be initiated and if it proceeds, a preventive detention order will be issued. 66. Article 177 of the same Ecuadorian Code indicated that a judge could order a preventive arrest when there was evidence that a crime that deserved an arrest had been committed. Article 177 of the mentioned Code stated: [e] the judge may issue an order of preventive detention when he considers it necessary, as long as the following procedural data is present: 1. Evidence that leads to the assumption of the existence of a crime that deserves an imprisonment penalty; [and] 2. Evidence that leads to the assumption that the defendant is the perpetrator or an accomplice of the crime object of the process. 67. The Law on the Control of the Trafficking of Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances in force at the time of the arrest of the alleged victim, stated in its Article 9(i) that the National Department for the Control of Narcotics was in charge of: [p]resenting expert reports in all the investigations and trials for the illegal sowing, possession, and trafficking of drugs prohibited by this Law, having to perform the laboratory tests and the corresponding analysis. 68. The mentioned Law on the Control of the Trafficking of Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances indicated in its Article 10, inter alia, that: [a]ll narcotics and psychotropic drugs […] that have been seized and that make up the evidence in each case under investigation will be destroyed once the necessary tests have been recollected for the corresponding analysis and its weight and characteristics have been verified. This procedure must be, necessarily and obligatorily, carried out before the Head of the National Police or his representative, and the Provincial Health Authority. Only a sample of the drug destroyed will be kept, which along with the corresponding report will justify the existence of the body of the crime in the procedure […].” 69. It has been proven (supra paras. 50(7), 50(8), 50(11), 50(12), 50(15), 50(17), 50(19), 50(23), 50(36), 50(38) and 50(40)) that an expert report of the alleged cocaine paste seized from Mr. Acosta Calderón was not issued in the present case, in order to comply with the requirement of the internal legislation to justify “in the procedure the existence of the body of the crime,” as established in Article 10 of the Law on the Control of the Trafficking of Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances. 70. Consequently, the State had the obligation, according to its internal legislation, to prove, through chemical analysis, that the substance in question was cocaine paste. Ecuador never performed those chemical analyses and also lost all the alleged cocaine paste (supra paras. 50(36), 50(38) and 50(40)). Despite the fact that the State never presented this report and, therefore, the existence of the substance whose possession was imputed to Mr. Acosta Calderón could not be proven, he remained imprisoned for more than five years. The above constituted an arbitrary arrest in his detriment. 71. Based on the above, this Court considers that the State violated Mr. Acosta Calderon’s right to not be submitted to arbitrary arrests or imprisonments, recognized in Article 7(3) of the American Convention, in connection with Article 1(1) of the same. * * * 72. The representatives of the alleged victim alleged that the State violated Article 7(4) of the Convention because at the moment of his arrest Mr. Acosta Calderón was