State presented its comments on January 10, 2000. More information was forthcoming from the petitioner on February 18, May 30, June 1 and July 12, 2000. On August 13, 2000, the State requested an extension to respond. Its request was granted. On August 22, 2000, the IACHR forwarded to the State more information it had received from the petitioner and gave the State 30 days in which to submit its comments. The State presented those comments on December 5, 2000, and the petitioner responded on December 29. III. POSITION OF THE PARTIES A. Petitioner 7. The petitioner recounts that on November 18, 1991, as they were driving down Avenida Mitre, near the intersection with Calle Centenario Uruguayo, in the city of Avellaneda, Province of Buenos Aires, Juan Carlos Bayarri and his father Juan José Bayarri 1were stopped by seven federal police officers in civilian dress and taken to a secret detention facility at the intersection of R.L. Falcón and Lacarre streets in the Federal Capital. At that facility, known as “El Olimpo”, Juan Carlos Bayarri was tortured. He alleges that he was beaten and subjected to sessions of the “plastic hood or dry submarine” and bursts of electric shocks. Under torture and threats against his life and the lives of his family, Juan Carlos Bayarri confessed to involvement in the commission of a number of criminal acts, to Precinct Chief Vincente Palo. 8. The petitioner further alleges that the following day, November 19, 1991, La Plata Federal Court Nº 1 “legalized” the arbitrary apprehension of Juan Carlos Bayarri and ordered his arrest, which was to be carried out by officers of the Federal Police Fraud Division. That decision was handed down by a letter rogatory from Federal Criminal Examining Court of First Instance Nº 25, which was investigating the unlawful deprivation of liberty of Mauricio Macri and others. On November 20, 1991, the petitioner was transferred to the facilities of the National Police Fraud Division at the Central Police Department. The petitioner alleges that the detention was arbitrary because he was in fact apprehended on November 18, 1991 -not November 19- at the place and time officially reported.2 9. The petitioner contends that the very same day, November 19, 1991, his father, after being abandoned on a street, immediately filed a complaint with the Buenos Aires Provincial Police 4th Precinct, Sarandí-Avellaneda, and later confirmed that complaint with Zamora Criminal Court Nº 4, located in the same province, where the case for unlawful deprivation of the petitioner’s liberty was opened. On December 23, 1991, the petitioner’s court attorney filed a criminal complaint against members of the Federal Police Fraud Division charging them with the crimes of unlawful detention and unlawful treatment of Juan Carlos Bayarri. The case was instituted in Examining Court Nº 13. No final decision has as yet been handed down. 10. The petitioner bases his allegations of torture on the testimony of medical personnel who had immediate knowledge of his case, and on the nature of the treatment prescribed for him.3 The medical record prepared on November 29 and indicating injury to the eardrum caused by the torture, disappeared. 11. The petitioner alleges a delay in performing “routine and necessary court measures”, such as execution of court decisions affecting the persons recognized to be and identified as coauthors of the crimes of unlawful deprivation of liberty and mistreatment. The inquiries into 1 While the petitioner mentions actions committed against his father, such as the fact that he was unlawfully detained at the same time as the petitioner was and then released the next day, he does not make any case for a violation of the Convention. 2 The petitioner sent the Commission a copy of a statement made by Guillermo Balmaceda, an immediate witness to the events, and a copy of the memorandum where Federal Examining Magistrate Nº 25, Mario Norberto Bonifati, heading up the investigation into the abduction of Mauricio Macri et al., informed the magistrate overseeing the inquiry into the petitioner’s unlawful deprivation of liberty that the petitioner “has been in custody since November 18, 1991, at Unit 16 of the Federal Penitentiary Service, by order of this court, indicted on multiple counts of criminal conspiracy and kidnapping for purposes of extortion.” He also supplied a copy of the report dated November 21, 1991, prepared by the Office of the Clerk of La Plata Federal Court Nº 1, and intended for Judge Bonifatti. That report states that no action could be taken on the letter rogatory of November 19, 1991, ordering the apprehension of Juan Carlos Bayarri, because the individual in question “was already in custody.” 3 The petitioner sent the Commission copies of the medical prescriptions. 2