11. The petitioners filed additional presentations on June 16 and July 10, 2001, which were in turn transmitted to the State on September 10, 2001, with any observations requested within one month. Additional observations from the State were received on October 2, 2001, and transmitted to the petitioners for their information on October 12, 2001. 12. It may be noted that various petitioners requested hearings before the Commission, first at the time of filing, and on three subsequent occasions. In each instance the petitioners were informed that the Commission was unable to grant the request due to the volume of hearings already scheduled. III. POSITION OF THE PARTIES Introduction 13. The questions of fact and law at issue in the petition arise out of criminal proceedings initiated against a group of 32 defendants, including the 21 alleged victims, on September 9, 1980. Those proceedings were titled “Galluzzi, Carlos Alberto y otros s/ defraudación militar s/ art. 445 bis del Código de Justicia Militar –causa Nº 56.” All the defendants were military personnel, more specifically, members of the Air Force, at that time. The case was investigated first before the Juzgado de Instrucción Militar Nº 12, and as from December 1980 before the Juzgado de Instrucción Militar Nº 1. As of October 4, 1982, it was placed before the Consejo Supremo de las Fuerzas Armadas, which issued its sentence on June 5, 1989. 14. Both the prosecution and defense filed appeals against that sentence, and these were placed before the Cámara Nacional de Apelaciones en lo Criminal y Correccional Federal de la Capital Federal on June 14, 1989. On April 23, 1990, that Chamber issued its order admitting certain claims raised. On December 5, 1990, the Chamber declared the statute of limitations to have expired on two of the three offenses. The prosecution then filed an extraordinary appeal. That appeal was resolved by the Supreme Court, which revoked the decision of prescription on July 30, 1991. On September 16, 1993, the Cámara Nacional de Apelaciones en lo Criminal y Correccional Federal de la Capital Federal declared that it was not competent to continue hearing the matter, indicating that competence properly corresponded to the National Chamber of Criminal Casation. The latter declined to exercise that competence. The jurisdictional conflict was resolved by the Supreme Court, which ruled that competence resided with the National Chamber of Criminal Casation. The latter issued its ruling on March 20, 1995 (the resolution) and April 3, 1995 (the considerations). On April 3, 1995, it denied the defendants’ extraordinary appeal. In August of 1995 the defendants filed a final “recurso de hecho,” and the proceedings culminated with the April 28, 1998 dismissal of that appeal by the Supreme Court of the Nation. 15. While there are certain distinctions in the situation of the alleged victims, the claims arise from the criminal proceedings to which they were subjected as a group. The present admissibility report accordingly deals with the positions of the parties with respect to the group. A. The Petitioners 16. For the purposes of this admissibility report, the petitioners’ allegations may be summarized as follows. They contend that the State of Argentina bears responsibility for having: failed to respect and guarantee the rights of the alleged victims set forth in the American Convention (Article 1); violated their right to physical integrity and to be free from torture (Article 5); arbitrarily and illegally deprived them of their liberty, failed to try or release them within a reasonable time, and failed to promptly present them before a judge to determine the legality of their arrest (Article 7); violated their right to be heard with due guarantees and within a reasonable time, violated their right to be presumed innocent during the proceedings, failed to provide prompt, adequate notification of the charges against them, denied them adequate means for their defense, denied them access to representation by qualified legal counsel, obliged them to declare against their own interests in their initial statements, and denied them a valid appeal (Article 8); violated their right to benefit from a 3