3 Guisela Brun, President of the Red Cross. She was informed by Elías Moreno, Head of the El Pari Police Commissariat, that her son was not there and had been transferred to the Police Station for questioning, together with two other detained men, Carlos López Adrián and Alfonso Toledo Rosales; e) on February 3, 1972, Gladys Oroza returned to El Pari at 7 a.m. but none of the three young men were there any longer. She went to the Police Station accompanied by Beatriz de Toledo, wife of Alfonso Toledo, who had been detained together with her son. Oscar Menacho, member of the Department of Political Order (hereinafter “DPO”), told them that the three prisoners had been taken to Montero, a town close to the city of Santa Cruz. Percy González Monasterio, at that time deputy head of the DPO in Santa Cruz, told them that “everything had been resolved and that they should wait for the head of the DPO, Ernesto Morant.” Justo Sarmiento Alanis, another DPO agent told them that the prisoners had been transferred by plane to El Paraguay. Finally, Ernesto Morant arrived at the Police Station and, at the request of Gladys Oroza, produced a radiogram signed by Antonio Guillermo Elío, Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of the Interior, ordering that Carlos López Adrián, Alfonso Toledo Rosales and José Carlos Trujillo Oroza be liberated. Subsequently, it was established that the radiogram was a piece of evidence fabricated by the Ministry of the Interior in order to hide the crimes and ensure the impunity of the authors. f) in view of the foregoing, Mrs. Oroza filed various petitions and took different steps before the executive and legislative branches of the government, but was unable to file a complaint before the Bolivian courts due to political instability in the country, where fragile democratic periods were interrupted by frequent coups d'état, the exile of direct next of kin, fear of repression by State agents and the Judiciary’s lack of independence with regard to the Executive; and g) it was only on January 8, 1999, that the State of Bolivia initiated a judicial investigation de oficio, although it had known about the facts immediately, in particular inasmuch as its own agents were responsible for those facts. III COMPETENCE OF THE COURT 3. The Court is competent to hear the instant case. Bolivia has been a State Party to the American Convention since July 19, 1979, and recognized the obligatory jurisdiction of the Court on July 27, 1993. IV PROCEDURE BEFORE THE COMMISSION 4. As a result of a complaint filed on September 28, 1992, the Commission began processing the case with a note of February 18, 1993, and requested Bolivia to provide pertinent information about the facts and any element that would allow it to be determined whether remedies under domestic law had been exhausted in the instant case.