opportunity to present any observations they deemed pertinent on their admissibility or
assessment.56
B.3. Documentation requested in the order convening the public hearing, during this
hearing, and subsequently
61.
In the Order of December 19, 2012 (supra para. 9), the State was required to present
certain documentation that had been requested by the representatives in their motions and
arguments brief.57 At the same time, the parties and the Commission were advised that they
would be given the procedural opportunity to refer to this documentation in their final
arguments if they considered this necessary. The order also stipulated, as regards the rest of
the information requested by the representatives, that “a decision on the pertinence of
requesting this would be taken at the appropriate time.”58
62.
On February 4, 2013, the State sent part of the documentation requested in the Order of
December 19 and, on February 7, 2013, it was asked to present, as soon as possible, the
remaining information required in the fourteenth operative paragraph of the said Order (supra
para. 9). That request was reiterated by the President of the Court during the public hearing
and by a communication of March 8, 2013. In addition, during the hearing, the President of the
Court asked the State to present different documents as helpful evidence,59 many of which were
mentioned in the statement of the deponent for information purposes proposed by the State60
and in the opinions of the expert witnesses proposed by both the Commission61 and the State.62
56
Cf. Case of Marino López et al. (Operation Genesis). Order of the President of the Court of December 19, 2013,
considering paragraph 39.
57
In particular, the Order required the State to present, by February 4, 2012, at the latest, “complete and
updated information on the current status of the investigations in relation to the situation prior to the dispacement and
to the events that followed it, in the terms indicated by the representatives, as well as updated information on the
disciplinary investigations into the facts that had been opened in August 2003, referred to by the Commission in its
Merits report.” Case of Marino López Mena et al. (Operation Genesis) v. Colombia, Order of the President of the Court of
December 19, 2012, considering paragraph 41 and fourteenth operative paragraph.
58
Cf. Case of Marino López et al. (Operation Genesis). Order of the President of the Court of December 19, 2013,
considering paragraph 41.
59
The President requested the following documentation: (a) any documents that may exist, even confidential
documents, that follow up on Operations Order 004 of February 1997. Internal evaluations; reports on the
implementation of this operation, which was, in essence, what is known as Operation Genesis; (b) he reiterated the
contents of the Secretariat’s note of February 7, 2013, requesting the missing information in relation to the fourteenth
operative paragraph of the said Order, and (c) “certain case files that had been requested (with their contents) and the
rulings made on them: first, criminal investigation 5767, today 425; second, criminal investigation 2332 and, third, the
investigations conducted under Law 975, the Justice and Peace Law, in relation to the facts of this case, including the
complete voluntary confessions that relate to this case, as the case file only contains parts of these statements.”
60
For example, deponent Miguel Samper mentioned the functions of the Historical Memory Center, a public entity
attached to the Administrative Department for Social Prosperity. He also indicated that, “the recent report imposed
something that the Prosecution Service had been implementing motu proprio, but that was not being done as a legal
obligation, and that is that an investigation plan must be drawn up based on macro-criminal patterns so that any
resulting indictments before the courts respond to an investigative strategy that compares all these sources that I am
mentioning.” Statement of Miguel Samper, deponent for information purposes proposed by the State, before the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights during the public hearing on February 12, 2013. The deponent also referred in the
written document delivered to the Court at the time of his statement to the fact that the Prosecutor General’s Office had
created a new National Analysis and Contexts Unit, “as an instrument of criminal policy aimed at dealing, above all, with
organized crime, by using the tools of criminal analysis and the creation of contexts.” He also noted that, at a second
stage, the judicial agents developed a new approach to investigation and prosecution aimed at the identification of
patterns of criminal activities in specific contexts. Statement of Miguel Samper, deponent for information purposes
proposed by the State, before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights during the public hearing on February 12,
2013, and document attached to the statement of Miguel Samper, deponent for information purposes proposed by the
State, before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights during the public hearing on February 12, 2013 (evidence file,
folios 16504 and 16514).
61
For example, expert witness Javier Ciurlizza mentioned the different studies carried out by the Historical
Memory Center. The expert witness also referred to the “general framework for indictments” which the prosecutors
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