6 measures to ensure that the witnesses and experts proposed by the Commission could deliver their statements and opinions. 15. On October 11, 1996, the President, after informing the State, decided to appoint as expert Dr. Eduardo Ferrero-Costa to lead the interrogation in Peru of a number of witnesses imprisoned in different Peruvian jails. Those statements would be heard in the presence of the Agent of the State and the Delegate of the Commission. On that same day, the President issued another Order in which he summoned the parties to a public hearing on February 5, 1997, to hear the statements of the witnesses proposed by the Commission, Mr. Iván Bazán-Chacón and Mr. Víctor Alvarez, and of the experts Nigel Rodley, Julio Maier, Carlos Arslanian, and Héctor Faúndez. 16. In a communication of December 13, 1996, which reached the Secretariat on January 6, 1997, the expert Dr. Eduardo Ferrero-Costa informed the Court of the development and conclusion of the arrangements for receiving the statements in Peru, and indicated that he had taken statements from the following witnesses: Luis Guzmán-Casas, Luis Alberto Cantoral-Benavides, Juan Alberto Delgadillo, Pedro Telmo Vega-Valle, and María Elena Loayza-Tamayo. He also reported that Ms. María de la Cruz-Pari had categorically refused and so had not been questioned, and that the taking of evidence from Mr. Santiago Felipe Agüero-Obregón had been canceled at the behest of the delegate of the InterAmerican Commission. No statement was taken from Mr. Enrique Pineda-Gonzáles, because the expert, for health reasons, had been unable to travel to Puno. Subsequently, the Commission informed the Court by note of April 15, 1997, that it did not consider it necessary to hear the testimony of Mr. Enrique Pineda-Gonzáles and Ms. María de la CruzPari. Mr. Ferrero submitted the record of the proceedings, the tapes containing the witnesses' statements, and the corresponding transcripts, all of which were duly transmitted to the parties. 17. On February 5, 1997, the Court held a public hearing on the merits of the case and heard the parties' closing arguments. There appeared before the Court: for the State of Peru: Mario Cavagnaro-Basile, Agent; and Mariano García Godos-McBride, Minister in the Diplomatic Services; for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights: Oscar Luján-Fappiano, Delegate; Domingo E. Acevedo, Deputy Executive Secretary; Carolina Loayza, Assistant; Viviana Krsticevic, Assistant; Ariel Dulitzky, Assistant; and Marcela Matamoros, Assistant. Witnesses presented by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights: Víctor Alvarez-Pérez; and