those crimes began in November and December 1991, respectively. The petitioner points out that on September 11, 1996, the judge of first instance decided “to dismiss, without prejudice,” the case concerning the crimes of unlawful detention and mistreatment. On April 1, 1997, Chamber VII of the Federal Appellate Court vacated that decision with regard to Juan Carlos Bayarri and observed that the egregious nature of the allegations “is such that the investigation, which is far from being exhausted, must probe further.” The examining judge therefore ordered that certain pieces of evidence be compiled. It was that court’s view that the petitioner’s version jibed with the version given by his father and by the direct witnesses to the arbitrary detention: Cándido Martínez, Guillermo Balmaceda and Noemí Lata de Caamaño. The petitioner points out that Federal Examining Court Nº 13 has dismissed this case twice because the many pieces of evidence collected were improperly weighed. He alleges that the courts’ failure to hand down a final judgment against the federal police officers was a violation of the petitioner’s right to judicial protection. 12. The petitioner further points that the Federal Criminal and Correctional Court Nº 6 has had him under indictment for more than nine years, and has still not handed down a final ruling. This, he argues, is a violation of his guarantee of due process within a reasonable period of time. To illustrate the numerous delays in rendering judgment in his case, the petitioner notes that charges were brought on August 11, 1991, and still no judgment has been handed down. In December 1998, the petitioner filed a motion in this case to have his confession thrown out, but thus far no decision has been made on that motion. Under Article 8(3) of the American Convention, a confession obtained under torture has no legal validity. Despite this, the State is using the torture-induced confession as evidence against the petitioner. It is also using information obtained from two anonymous sources: a document naming the petitioner as the author of the kidnapping of entrepreneur Mauricio Macri, and a so-called phone tip supposedly reporting that he was “physically present in a bar when [by that time] more than 36 hours had passed since his apprehension and torture.” 13. The petitioner alleges that his right to be tried within a reasonable period or be released is being violated by virtue of the fact that his requests to be released have been repeatedly denied and the criminal case against him has been dragged out. He points out that he exhausted the remedies under domestic law several times over. The first time, on March 30, 1995, the Federal Appeals Court upheld the ruling of the lower court that denied the release. The petitioner filed an extraordinary appeal and that, too, was denied by the Appellate Chamber on June 22, 1995. The second time, on January 25, 1996, the Federal Appellate Chamber upheld the December 18, 1995 decision of Federal Court of First Instance Nº 6, which denied the petitioner’s request for release on the grounds that the deadline for filing the request had passed. 14. By the time the petitioner file his third request for release, he had been in preventive detention for 58 months. The court of first instance denied that request on September 12, 1996. In that decision, the court ruled that “the situation of the accused Bayarri has not substantially changed and evidence is about to be taken. Therefore, because the conclusion is in sight, the court cannot justify early release.” The court of second instance upheld this decision on October 31, 1996, based on the nature of the crime, the personal circumstances of the accused and the sentence that the charges carried. Based on those considerations, the court reasoned, it “can reasonably assume that were the accused to be released, he would evade court action.” 15. The petitioner alleges that he exercised his option for oral proceedings, an option allowed under the new Code of Criminal Procedure, Law 23.984, but that the judge denied his arguments in the aforementioned decision. He alleges that the judge has no legitimate reason to conclude that if released he would evade court action and turn his back on eight years of court suits. Nor is there any chance that he might intimidate some witness, because he had gone through only one line-up. In that line-up, only one of the victims identified him, but then failed to show up to make his statement once the evidentiary phase of the case was underway. The petitioner therefore argues that it is senseless to infer that he might intimidate someone else. The fourth request for release was presented on January 9, 1997, and denied by the 3