-611982 and talk to people.
100. With regard to this change in the course of the investigation, it is worth
noting that, in October 2003, the prosecutor requested the judge to summon five
people to testify, because he had “received out-of-court information [… that the said]
people c[ould] provide information that [would] help clarify the facts under
investigation.” These people were summoned by the judge the same day or the day
after the prosecutor made the request, and all of them testified the day of the
summons or the following day that they did not know that Ernestina and Erlinda
Serrano Cruz were María Victoria Cruz Franco’s daughters and that they did not know
the girls. The Court observes that, a few days later, these people were proposed as
witnesses before the Inter-American Court by the State Agents, in their brief with
preliminary objections, answering the application and observations on the requests
and arguments brief.
101. Also, at the end of October 2003, the prosecutor requested the Chalatenango
Trial Court to again summon María Esperanza Franco Orellana de Miranda to testify
(supra para. 48(35) and 48(71)), because he had “received out-of-court information
that the said witness c[ould] provide information that [would] help clarify the […]
facts under investigation.” The day that the prosecutor submitted the request that
Ms. Franco Orellana de Miranda’s testimony should be heard, the judge, instead of
summoning her, summoned the alleged victims’ mother to testify. However, the
judge did receive the testimony of the person the prosecutor had requested. In her
second statement, Ms. Franco Orellana, contradicted what she had said in her first
statement, made on September 23, 1997 (supra para. 48(35)), and stated that “it
[was] not true that [… she had seen] the children, ERLINDA AND ERNESTINA
SERRANO, descend from a helicopter and get into a Red Cross vehicle[, … because
she] never knew or saw the [Serrano Cruz sisters] and had never heard their names
before.” The State’s Agents in the proceedings before the Court also proposed this
person as a witness. At the request of the prosecutor, the judge also ordered that
expert appraisals should be carried out to verify the authenticity of the baptismal
records of Erlinda and Ernestina Serrano Cruz kept by the Catholic Church, even
though, in addition to these records, the births of Ernestina and Erlinda had been
registered, because while the Special Transitory Act to establish the civil status of
undocumented persons affected the conflict was in force, María Victoria Cruz Franco
had registered her daughters, Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano Cruz, in the respective
mayors’ offices (supra para. 48(10)). The baptismal register where the baptism of
Erlinda Serrano Cruz was registered was seized, based on article 183 of the 1973
Code of Criminal Procedure, which refers to the seizure of “objects or instruments
relating to a crime” (supra para. 48(76)).
102. The Court can only note that these efforts to prove the alleged victims did not
exist conflict with the fact that, in its investigations into cases of children who
disappeared during the armed conflict, the Salvadoran Ombudsman’s Office referred
specifically to the case of Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano Cruz in two decisions and
one report (supra para. 48(3), 48(4) and 48(5)). In the decision issued on March 30,
1998, it stated, inter alia, that, in the criminal proceedings concerning what
happened to Ernestina and Erlinda, a violation “of due process of law [was
occurring,] owing to acts that denied justice and failed to comply with the right to
receive justice promptly[, …] which could be attributed to the competent judge”; and
it recommended that she should “be more diligent regarding the principle of
procedural effectiveness.” In his special report of September 2, 2004, “into the
forced disappearance of the children, Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano Cruz, its current