9.
Following the Order of the Court (supra having seen paragraph 1), the State should
have adopted, immediately, any necessary measures to determine the situation and
whereabouts of Mr. Guerrero Larez and to protect his life and personal integrity. In this regard,
the State advised that: (a) on February 25, 2010, an inspection was made of the Venezuelan
General Penitentiary with the support of 15 members of the National Guard, four experts
attached to the Scientific, Criminal and Criminalistics Investigations Unit, and two workers,
who proceeded to excavate a hole of approximately 60 centimeters in the place indicated by
the wife of inmate Guerrero Larez as the burial place, “without finding any evidence of
criminalistics interest”; (b) on March 3, 2010, at the Prosecutor’s request, the First Trial Court
with Supervisory Powers of the Criminal Judicial Circuit of Guárico State issued an arrest
warrant for the prisoner Guerrero Larez, “because the possibility has not been excluded that
the said citizen is a fugitive from justice”; (c) the Administrative Service for Identification,
Immigration and Alien’s Affairs was asked to provide the possible migratory movements of Mr.
Guerrero Larez; (d) it was agreed to continue the inspection on March 4, 2012; however, “it
was not continued owing to the absence of support from the Bolivarian National Guard to
provide security to the team appointed to enter the [Venezuelan General Penitentiary], even
though this had been requested on several occasions by the Third Prosecutor, in response to
which the Head of Unit No. 28 of the Bolivarian National Guard advised that, on the
instructions of his superiors, the members of the said unit were prohibited from entering the
prison, even for the roll-call and to count the prisoners”; (e) the Third Prosecutor of the Public
Prosecution Service of the Judicial Circumscription of Guárico State is responsible for the
investigation of two cases that have been joindered, one against Mr. Guerrero Larez for
violating his sentence (evasion), and another in which he appears as a victim, initiated as a
result of the complaint filed for his presumed death while serving his sentence in the
Venezuelan General Penitentiary, and (f) the Office of the Delegate Ombudsman of Guárico
State advised in April 2012, that, since February 25, 2012, the Third Prosecutor “had not taken
any steps to look for the citizen who has disappeared.” The State has not provided any further
information.
10.
The representatives reiterated the statements of the beneficiary’s father and wife, who
have contradicted some of the State’s affirmations concerning the measures taken. They also
emphasized that the State had not provided a “prompt and satisfactory answer” with regard to
the location and whereabouts of Mr. Guerrero Larez, because it had failed to provide
information on the results of the request made to the Administrative Service for Identification,
Immigration and Alien’s Affairs, while it ordered the arrest of Mr. Guerrero Larez, “knowing
that he had not escaped from the prison.” Consequently, they asked the Court that, when
reiterating to the State that these measures remain in force, it “stress that the case does not
refer to an “aggravated escape,” as indicated in the State’s report, but to a disappearance.”
11.
The Commission indicated that the information provided by the State reveals that none
of the domestic proceedings have taken steps to try and find the whereabouts of the
beneficiary immediately and by all available means. It also considered that “[t]he time that has
passed without any measure being taken by the State, together with the failure to follow up on
the measures initiated previously, clearly constitute non-compliance with the provisional
measures ordered by the Inter-American Court.” Lastly, it expressed its “profound concern for
the situation of the beneficiary, whose fate or whereabouts have still not been determined by
the State of Venezuela, even though he disappeared while in its custody and, consequently,
the State occupied a special position as guarantor of his life and personal integrity.”
12.
In this regard, the Court finds it opportune to recall that a supposed absence of
investigation by a State does not necessarily constitute, in itself, a circumstance of extreme
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