the case was provisionally dismissed, a decision that was appealed and revoked and, on
December 30, 2009, the judge of the proceeding provisionally dismissed the presumed
participant for the second time. Nevertheless, according to the case file, on August 26,
2011, case No. S-85,714 was forwarded to the Criminal Appeals and Guarantees Chamber
of the La Plata Judicial Department, to hold the oral public proceeding regarding the said
presumed participant, pursuant to the decision of the Supreme Court of Justice of the
province of Buenos Aires of June 18, 2013 (supra paras. 44 to 50 and 60 to 72).
B.1. Omissions in following up on lines of investigation and in collecting evidence
101. This Court has established that, in order to guarantee effectiveness, when
investigating human rights violations, it is essential to avoid omissions in the collection of
evidence and in following up on logical lines of investigation. 198
102. As indicated supra, it is not incumbent on the Court to analyze the hypotheses on
authorship developed during the investigation of the events and, consequently, to
determine individual responsibilities, the definition of which corresponds to the domestic
criminal courts. 199 Nevertheless, the Court has stipulated that when the “facts refer to the
violent death of a person, the investigation opened must be conducted in such a way that it
can ensure the appropriate analysis of the corresponding hypotheses of authorship, in
particular those that infer the participation of State agents.” 200
103. In this regard, first, the Court takes note that, following the acquittal of the federal
police agent indicted in this case, the judge in charge of the criminal proceedings was
subjected to an investigation by the Office of the Prosecutor General of the Supreme Court
of Justice of Buenos Aires owing to his actions during the course of the investigation. Thus,
the report that the Assistant Prosecutor General presented to the president of that court
recorded that “the irregularities that [he found] were decisive for the failure of the
investigation.” In this report, the Assistant Prosecutor General described the lines of
investigation that should have been followed up on in order to determine the motive for the
murder, among others, the “matter [… of the] warehouse abutting the Police Precinct where
[Mr. Gutiérrez] served. Regarding the determination of the motive and the possible
relationship between the accused […] and the victim, and also the individualization of the
second participant in the murder, [… he] criticized […] the lack of investigative activity in
this regard […]. 201
104. The Court has also taken note that, during the preliminary investigation stage, the
following evidence, inter alia, was gathered concerning the motive for the extrajudicial
execution of Assistant Commissioner Gutiérrez: (a) in a statement of September 7, 1994,
before the Second Police Precinct of La Plata (supra para. 45), Nilda del Valle Maldonado,
wife of Mr. Gutiérrez, indicated as a relevant fact, that he had visited the said bonded
warehouse and that, on receiving his personal effects after his death, her attention was
drawn to the fact that her husband’s strongbox was open, because he had always kept it
198
Cf. Case of the Serrano Cruz Sisters v. El Salvador. Merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of March 1,
2005. Series C No. 120, paras. 88 and 105, and Case of Contreras et al. v. El Salvador. Merits, reparations and
costs. Judgment of August 31, 2011. Series C No. 232, para. 146.
199
Cf. Case of Suárez Rosero v. Ecuador. Merits. Judgment of November 12, 1997. Series C No. 35, para. 37,
and Case of Manuel Cepeda Vargas, supra, para. 41.
200
Case of Kawas Fernández v. Honduras. Merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of April 3, 2009. Series C
No. 196, para. 96.
201
Cf. Report of the Assistant Prosecutor General of the Supreme Court of Justice of Buenos Aires of May 12,
2004 (file of annexes to the submission brief, folio 287).
40
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