Ecuador, and the Panamanian Embassy in Ecuador. Dated September 16, 2003, six days after his deportation, the Executive Director of the Ecumenical Commission of Human Rights (CEDHU) sent a letter to the Consul General of the Republic of Ecuador in Panama, asking for his help in recovering the passport, identity card, military passbook and medical certificates belonging to Mr. Vélez Loor. At the same time, a complaint about the torture that had been administered during his period in detention and the confiscation of his possessions was faxed to the Panamanian Embassy in Ecuador on February 2004. According to the petitioner, the complaint led to an investigation which concluded that the detention had been legal. a. It is alleged that the party alleging violation of his rights was denied access to domestic remedies, in light of his deportee status 40. In previous cases, the Commission has declared admissible petitions of individuals who were deported and not permitted to re-enter the State which allegedly violated their rights, to enable them to challenge the human rights violations they have allegedly endured. 6 In the Chamorro Quiroz case, petitioners argued as follows: … that Mr. Chamorro was not “materially” able to invoke domestic legal remedies before leaving the country because he was taken directly from where he was captured to the place where he was deported. According to the petitioners, detaining undocumented immigrants for several hours before deporting them is an administrative measure, taken within highly summary, almost automatic, proceedings, that does not allow them the opportunity of filing or attempting to seek any domestic remedy, including habeas corpus. In addition, since they had no papers and no means of economic support, they were unable to reenter Costa Rica to formulate complaints or invoke the applicable legal remedies, as claimed by the State.7 41. In Chamorro Quiroz, the IACHR decided to allow the petition on account of the fact that this was a clear case of the circumstances referred to in Article 46(2)(b) of the American Convention which states that Article 46(1)(a) and 46(1)(b) shall not be applied when: the party alleging violation of his rights has been denied access to the remedies under domestic law or has been prevented from exhausting them. The facts of the Chamorro Quiroz case demonstrated to the Commission that, despite the official position expressed by the State, to the effect that deported foreigners had access to the legal remedies of annulment (revocatoria) and appeal (apelación) proceedings, it was later proven that in actual fact they were not in possession of these rights. The Law concerning Migration and Aliens, according to the manner in which the State of Costa Rica interpreted its own laws, was interpreted to mean that undocumented aliens, on account of the fact that their situation was "absolutely illegal" (in other words, because they had entered the State’s territory without proper authorization, without immigration papers), enjoyed no such rights.8 42. Mr. Chamorro lacked an opportunity to invoke domestic legal remedies prior to leaving Costa Rica because he was driven directly from the place he was captured to the place from which he was deported. Comparing the case of Mr. Vélez Loor with that of Mr. Chamorro, Mr. Vélez also lacked the opportunity of invoking domestic remedies before leaving the country as he was driven to a detention center where he was not allowed any contact with the outside world. He alleges that he was not allowed to use the telephone or have any contact with consular agents from Ecuador. He furthermore asserts that he was only allowed access to one lawyer who was unable to visit him in person. Consequently, irrespective of whether the administrative or legal remedies could have been available to him, for practical purposes such remedies were out of his reach. 43. The Commission finds that with regard to the first argument presented by the petitioner, the State did not allow Mr. Vélez Loor access to remedies under domestic law to challenge the alleged arbitrary detention and the mistreatment and torture that he purportedly suffered. The 6 See IACHR, Admissibility Report Nº 37/01, Case 11.529, José Sánchez Guner Espinales et al. (Costa Rica), February 22, 2001, and IACHR, Admissibility Report Nº 89/00, Case 11.495, Juan Ramón Chamorro Quiroz (Costa Rica), October 5, 2000. 7 Ibid. Admissibility Report Nº 89/00, para. 35. 8 Ibid., para. 34. 8