proceedings that the State has not “presented […] any evidence of even one case in which the preliminary hearing was postponed because of the failure to appear of Mr. Brewer Carías.” 105. Added to this, in the judicial ruling of the Twenty-fifth Court of July 20, 2007, responding to the request presented by one of the other accused in the proceedings, who was also waiting for the preliminary hearing to be held, that Mr. Brewer be separated from the case, in view of “the impossibility of holding this hearing since he was abroad,” the supervisory judge founded his decision on: “In the case in question, the preliminary hearing has not been postponed owing to the failure to appear of [Mr.] Brewer Carías; to the contrary, the different delays that are noted in the records of this case file have been due to the numerous requests filed by the different defense counsel of those accused. 100 106. According to the evidence in the case file, the failure to appear of Mr. Brewer Carías occurred after the indictment had been filed against him, at which time the defense counsel of Mr. Brewer Carías informed the Twenty-fifth Judge that Mr. Brewer would not return to the country because he considered that: (i) the actions of the Public Prosecution Service in this case had clearly constituted official political persecution against him”; (ii) “the Prosecutor General himself […] ha[d] directly violated his guarantee of the presumption of innocence, by publicly condemning him in advance of a trial, with the publication of the book ‘Abril comienza en octubre’”; (iii) “in response to the opportune appeal filed before the court, he ha[d] only obtained negative responses [and] these negative and frequently delayed responses from the jurisdictional organ ha[d], in turn, constituted new violations of his constitutional guarantees”; (iv) “his right to obtain the dismissal of the case in the intermediate state of the proceedings had been curtailed”; (v) all of this represented the denial of accessible, impartial, appropriate, transparent, autonomous, independent, responsible, equitable and expedite justice,” and (vi) “the indictment was, in itself, already a sentence, designed to punish his political and ideological criticism of the project intended to subjugate Venezuela.” 107. The above-mentioned considerations, especially with regard to the publication of a book by the Prosecutor General entitled “Abril comienza en octubre” in which reference is made to certain statements by someone according to which Mr. Brewer was the author of the “Carmona Decree,” and in which it is stated that Mr. Brewer Carías had supposedly been present at a meeting where this decree was drawn up, are directly related to the right to judicial guarantees and, in particular, to the right to the presumption of innocence. 108. In this regard, the Court’s recent case law in the case of J v. Peru should be recalled, 101 where it established plainly that: 233. The Inter-American Court has indicated that, in the sphere of criminal justice, the principle of the presumption of innocence constitutes a cornerstone of the judicial there is no way to conclude that the postponements of the preliminary hearing can be attributed directly and exclusively to the absence of the currently presumed victim, as the majority opinion tries to demonstrate. 100 Ruling of the Twenty-fifth Court of the Judicial Circuit of the Metropolitan Area of Caracas of July 20, 2007, on the brief filed by the defense counsel of José Gregorio Vásquez (file of annexes to the motions and arguments brief, tome v, folios 6832 to 6838). 101 Case of J. v. Peru. Preliminary objection, merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of November 27, 2013. Series C No. 275. 27