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cases of violations to human rights.” Pursuant with the new set of rules in
force, on October 11, 2004 the Third Criminal Chamber of Lima issued an
order stating that the court records of the present case be forwarded to the
recently created National Criminal Chamber;
d) on June 2, 2005, the National Criminal Chamber issued an order to
prosecute the sixteen police officers accused of the crime against freedom –
kidnapping – in detriment of Ernesto Castillo Páez and declared that there
were grounds to move on to an oral trial, which was initiated on July 20,
2005;
e) once the oral trial’s evidence production stage had concluded, the Public
Prosecutors’ Office accused the defendants of the crime of forced
disappearance and separated itself from its initial indictment;
f)
on March 16, 2006 the National Criminal Chamber of Perú ruled “acquitting
from the criminal accusation” twelve of the accused parties and sentencing
Juan Carlos Mejía León, Manuel Santiago Arotuma Valdivia, Carlos Manuel
Depaz Briones, and Juan Fernando Aragón Guibovich to serve prison terms
“for the crime against Humanity – Forced Disappearance in detriment of
Ernesto Castillo Páez” and to payment of an amount in the concept of civil
reparation. The National Criminal Chamber, upon ruling if it was correct to
apply the crime of forced disappearance of persons, established that “some
of the defense attorneys of the accused have objected that it would be
contrary to the principle of material legality to take into consideration a
criminal figure not defined in the domestic legislation, such as the forced
disappearance of persons, which was not in force at the time of the facts. In
this sense, we must state that up to this moment, the whereabouts of the
youngster Castillo Páez are unknown, which is a direct consequence of the
author’s criminal actions and for which the latter shall respond in all its
magnitude. If we start with the circumstance, which seems undisputed, that
the whereabouts of the student Ernesto Castillo Páez have not yet been
established, we must presume that his illegal detainment continues, and
that therefore this crime is still being executed, thus its characterization as
permanent. In these cases it can be stated that the crime ‘had a continued
execution’. […] [t]hus pursuant with the stipulations of Article 285 A of
Executive Decree 959, the facts proven in court records fit within Article
three hundred and twenty of the Criminal Code in force, namely crime
against Humanity - Forced Disappearance;”
g) the Superior Public Prosecutor, the civil party, and the defense counsel of
the defendants filed appeals for annulment against the judgment of the
National Criminal Chamber. The Superior Public Prosecutor filed said appeal
because, in its opinion, the punishments imposed on the defendants were
not “proportional to the grave damage caused,” reason for which he
requested that they be increased. Upon appealing the conviction, the
defense counsel of the accused parties questioned, inter alia, the evidentiary
means on which said decision was based and the retroactive application of
the law. The civil party challenged the judgment because it considered that
the amount set for the civil reparation “[was] insufficient when considering
the damage caused,” and
h) on December 18, 2007 the First Transitory Chamber of the Supreme Court
of Justice of Perú issued a judgment in which it declared “there was no