-35displaced had been accommodated. The children ranged from newborn babies to 12
years old.
48(32) On July 12, 1996, the Chalatenango Trial Court issued a letter rogatory to the
Ilobasco Trial Court, Cabañas Department, to receive the statement of Esperanza
Franco Orellana, who had been named as a witness by María Victoria Cruz Franco
(supra para. 48(28)). This letter rogatory was never received by the said Ilobasco
Court, and was therefore repeated on September 18, 1996. On February 17, 1997,
almost five months after the letter rogatory had been issued, the Chalatenango Trial
Court received official communication No. 431 issued by the Ilobasco Trial Court,
advising that it had not been possible to summon Esperanza Franco, “since she was
not known at the address provided” for notifying the summons.
48(33) In her statement before the Chalatenango Trial Court on July 19, 1996 (supra
para. 48(30)), Suyapa Serrano Cruz stated that her family had received news that
her sisters, Ernestina and Erlinda, had been handed over to the International Red
Cross from Esperanza Franco, and provided the latter’s address.
48(34) On July 30, 1997, the prosecutor assigned by the Special Crimes Unit stated
that the “summons of Esperanza Franco […] of July 12, [1996 (supra para. 48(32))]
[…] d[id] not include the complete address” and, consequently, Mrs. Franco had not
been found. He also indicated that the complete address could be found in the
statement made by Suyapa Serrano Cruz on July 19, 1996 (supra para. 48(30)), and
requested that “Esperanza Franco be formally summoned […] to testify as a
witness.”
48(35) On September 23, 1997, María Esperanza Franco Orellana de Miranda
testified before the Chalatenango Trial Court, more than 14 months after Mrs. Cruz
Franco had provided her name as a witness of the facts (supra para. 48(28)). In her
statement, Mrs. Franco Orellana indicated, inter alia, that on June 2, 1982 “she was
in the Sierpe district [with] her mother[, who] told her she had seen [when] the
children, Ernestina [and Erlinda] Serrano, were taken from an Armed Forces
helicopter,” so “they drove to the place where [this] helicopter had landed,” and it
was then that “she saw they were putting [the said] children in a Red Cross vehicle”;
she did not know whether this was the national or the international Red Cross.
48(36) On September 2, 1996, the prosecutor assigned by the Special Crimes Unit
filed a brief, in which he requested the Chalatenango Trial Court to “issue an official
communication to the International Committee of the Red Cross requesting it to
advise whether Herlinda [(sic)] and Ernestina [Serrano Cruz] were among the
children [it attended] in 1982 [… and] to the Hospital Director, Dr. Luis Edmundo
Vásquez, requesting him to advise whether his institution had provided medical care
to the child, Herlinda [(sic)] in June” 1982, since information had been received that
“this child had been injured by a bullet from a firearm.” The court issued these
official communications on September 3, 1996.
48(37) On September 23, 1996, the Director of the National Hospital, Dr. Luis
Edmundo Vásquez advised the Chalatenango Trial Court, that Ernestina and Erlinda
Serrano “did not receive medical care in July 1982, [because] the information
cards[,] list of patients[,] and record of interned patients ha[d] been reviewed and
the said children were not registered.” The dates forwarded by the Hospital
correspond to July 1982, and do not refer to the records for June that year, contrary
to the Trial Court’s request. The court did not make another request for the hospital