2
2.
In light of the above, the Commission asked the Court to find that there was a
violation of the rights of Walter David Bulacio under Articles 4 (Right to Life), 5
(Right to Humane Treatment), 7 (Right to Personal Liberty) and 19 (Rights of the
Child), as well as Articles 8 (Right to Fair Trial) and 25 (Right to Judicial Protection)
to his detriment and that of his next of kin, all of them in combination with Article 1
(Obligation to Respect Rights) of the American Convention. The Commission also
asked the Court to order the State to adopt various measures of pecuniary and nonpecuniary reparation (infra 82, 92, 107, and 147).
II
THE FACTS
3.
The submissions by the Commission and by the Center for Justice and
International Law (hereinafter “CEJIL”), the Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales
(hereinafter “CELS”) and the Coordinadora contra la Represión Policial e Institucional
(hereinafter “CORREPI”), who also act as representatives of the next of kin of the
alleged victim (hereinafter the “representatives of the alleged victim”), show the
following facts:
1)
on April 19, 1991, the Argentine Federal Police conducted a massive
detention or “razzia” of “more than eighty persons” in the city of
Buenos Aires, near the stadium Club Obras Sanitarias de la Nación,
where a rock music concert was to be held. One of the detainees was
Walter David Bulacio, a seventeen year-old, who after his detention
was taken to the 35th Police Station, specifically to its “juvenile
detention room”. At this place, police agents beat him. The detainees
were gradually set free without any criminal charges being filed
against them, and the reason for their detention is unknown. In the
case of the minors, the Juvenile Correctional Judge on duty did not
receive notice, as required by law No. 10,903 and, in the specific case
of Walter David Bulacio, his next of kin were not informed either.
During their detention, the minors were held under inadequate
detention conditions;
2)
on April 20, 1991, after having vomited in the morning, youth Walter
David Bulacio was taken to the Pirovano Municipal Hospital in an
ambulance, without informing his parents or the Juvenile Judge. The
physician who examined him at the hospital pointed out that the youth
showed injuries and he diagnosed a “cranial traumatism.” That same
afternoon, the alleged victim was taken to the Fernández Municipal
Hospital for an x-ray study and was taken back to the Pirovano
Municipal Hospital.
Walter David Bulacio told the physician who
examined him that he had been beaten by the police, and that night
he was visited at this hospital by his parents, who had shortly before
heard from a neighbor what had happened to their son;
3)
on April 21, 1991, minor Walter David Bulacio was transferred to the
Mitre Sanatorium. The physician on duty reported to the 7th Police
Station that “a minor with injuries” had been admitted and, therefore,
that Police Station opened a police investigation for criminal injuries;