14. The Commission received additional comments from the petitioners and updated information on the criminal case on August 14 and October 12, 2009 and February 2 and March 12, 2010. The Commission forwarded said communications to the State for its response. On June 18, 2010, a communication was received from the State expressing its interest in resuming the friendly settlment process. The IACHR forwarded said offer to the petitioners settting a deadline of one month for their response. On Sepetember 16, 2010, the petitioners replied that they did not wish to reopen the friendly settlement process and requested the merits of the matter to continue to be processed. The Commission forwarded said response to the State for its reference. 15. The petitioners submitted additional information on May 16, July 19, August 6 and September 4, 2011; February 18, March 24 and 25, April 15, May 24, June 20 and 23, July 9 and 17, August 6, 13 and 14, September 28, October 9 and 14, and November 3, 2012; January 27, February 15 and 16, March 24, April 21, June 12 and 26, July 24 and September 20, 2013; and January 26, 2014. All of the communications were brought to the attention of the State, and in a communication of August 13, 2013, the IACHR requested the State to submit observations within a one-month period. As of the present date of this report, no response has been received from the State. 16. On March 14, 2014, the Commission received accreditation from the Inter-American Association of Public Defenders (AIDEF) to act as legal representative in the case. III. POSITION OF THE PARTIES A. Petitioners 17. Inasmuch as a detailed account of the facts will be provided in the ‘Findings of Fact’ section (IV) hereafter, the Commission will confine itself in this section to giving a succinct description of the alleged facts and a summary of the petitioners’ arguments of law. These arguments pertain tothe State’s responsibility for the death of Mr. Ortiz, which was allegedly caused by an agent of the National Guard with a firearm in a combat training exercise, where the use of such weapons was banned, as well as for the failure to investigate and clarify the incidents and who was liable for them. 18. In this regard, the petitioners claimed that19 year-old Johan Alexis Ortiz Hernández was a student at the ESGUARCAC, in Cordero, State of Táchira, and on February 15, 1998, was taken to participate in a combat training exercise at Outpost 19 of the Rural Commandos in Caño Negro, during which he was hit by gunshots, which caused his death. 19. They contended that several different versions of the facts were given as to what had happened to Mr. Ortiz. The first version, which was given to them by the military authorities on that very same day of February 15, is that their son had been “accidentally” wounded. A second version, which was released in the media, is that Johan Alexis Ortizhad committed suicide. And a third version, which they heard after interviews of allegedly involved individuals were conducted, is that Mr. Ortiz had been shotbefore the training exercise hadbegun. 20. The petitioners alleged that the death was intentionally caused by NG officers. They claimed that, the military academy authorities’ version from very beginning was that Mr. Ortiz was “accidentally” shot. They further contended that they were victims of concealment of information, because the authorities refused to provide them with exact information on the incidents and they claimed that after making their own efforts to look into the incidents, they managed to ascertain that there were a number of inconsistencies in the State’s version of the facts and that there were other theories, which were never investigated. These theories included, based on the information they were able to gather, that the death could have been prompted by investigations that their son had been conducting withregard to other incidents within the military institution or because of an alleged love affair he supposedly was having with the wife of an officer linked to the institution.