6 to continue to exercise jurisdiction over the instant case and to convene a public hearing on the merits of the case at the next procedural opportunity. 30. On September 15, 1999, Alberto A. Borea Odría submitted a brief in the capacity of amicus curiae. 31. On September 24, 1999, the Inter-American Court delivered judgment on its competence, in which it decided: 1. To declare that: a. the Inter-American Court of Human Rights is competent to take up the present case; b. Peru’s purported withdrawal, with immediate effect, of the declaration recognizing the contentious jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights is inadmissible[;] 2. [t]o continue to examine and process the instant case[;] 3. [t]o commission its President, at the appropriate time, to convene the State of Peru and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to a public hearing on the merits of the case, to be held at the seat of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights[, and] 4. [t]o notify Peru and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of this judgment. 32. On September 27, 1999, the Minister of Peru’s Embassy in Costa Rica appeared at the seat of the court to return the judgment on competence to the Secretariat and to deliver a note from the Embassy, of the same date, indicating the reasons for this conduct, which were the same as those stated in the State’s briefs of August 4 and 9, 1999 (supra paras. 25 and 26). 33. On September 29, October 4, and November 1, 1999, Peru sent three notes to the Secretariat with it comments on the judgment on competence (supra para. 31). 34. On January 21, 2000, the Secretariat requested the Inter-American Commission to present the list of the witnesses and experts offered in its application, who would appear at the public hearing on the merits. This list was filed by the Commission on February 15, 2000, and forwarded to the State on February 17, 2000. 35. On February 21, 2000, the State returned the list of the witnesses and experts offered by the Commission to the Secretariat. 36. On September 13, 2000, the President summoned the State and the Commission to a public hearing on the merits, to be held at the seat of the Court as of November 20 that year, in order to receive the statements of Baruch Ivcher Bronstein, Fernando Viaña Villa, Rosario Lam Torres, Julio Sotelo Casanova, Vladimir Paz de la Barra, Javier Díez Canseco Cisneros, Luis Pércovich Roca, Ángel Páez Salcedo, Fernando Rospigliosi Capurro, Alejandro Miró Quesada Cisneros, Nicolás de Bari Hermoza Ríos, Vladimiro Montesinos Torres, Víctor Huamán del Solar and Percy Escobar, the witnesses offered by the Commission and the reports of Gustavo Gorriti Ellenbogen, Samuel Abad Yupanqui, Beatriz Merino Lucero and Diego García Sayán,