attributing this to the judges who conducted the investigation into the murder to identify those responsible.247 149. Similarly, the representatives stated that after 14 years, “there are only two firm convictions to date, involving the material authors of the murder.” However, the files contain clear evidence that could lead to “investigations regarding the possible intellectual authors, [among them public officials, for whom] the few proceedings conducted were irregular and biased.” They added that the case was not complex, and therefore the unjustified delay in the investigation made the time period even more unreasonable. 150. The State argued that “to affirm the violation of due process and the protection of guarantees due to a lack of investigative actions, the omission of evidence, the failure to exhaust witness testimonies and to execute arrest warrants is implausible for the purposes of reinforcing the thesis of the State’s responsibility,” [since] there is evidence of […] the efforts of the Public Prosecutor’s Office to pursue all of those individuals whom it considered were likely to be implicated.” The State also affirmed that, “from the moment of Carlos Luna’s death, the respective authorities acted diligently by ordering the criminal procedures to determine the crime committed and assign responsibility to those who committed it.” It indicated that the delivery of the body to the family before its official recovery was “a common practice, even today, particularly in violent crimes where the person […] is transported to a hospital but later dies,” and added that “even if there was no [autopsy], it was still possible to determine the causes of death, adding that the lack of an autopsy was “not a limiting factor in the identification of those responsible [,] their subsequent prosecution and conviction.” It recalled that the procedures carried out “responded to a predominately inquisitorial system [that] among its most evident defects was its sluggishness, being a written procedure.”248 151. The State emphasized that, under the premise that the murder of Mr. Luna López was a common criminal act, it was clear that the investigative procedures were never paralyzed in the proceedings conducted against the two material authors. Similarly, it pointed out that “with regard to the supposed intellectual authors, no links were proven during the trial to consider them as the intellectual co-authors of the death of Carlos Luna.” Nevertheless, the State added that “[f]rom the evidence in the file, it is believed that Mr. [José Ángel] Rosa [..], was the intellectual author, given that in addition to the threats made on two occasions against Carlos Luna and the accused Oscar Aurelio Rodríguez, he went so far [as to] threaten one of the prosecutors working on the case, to the point that a new prosecutor had to be appointed from the capital city to avoid risks.” 152. The State also argued that the case was indeed complex and that the analysis should not be limited only to the “passage of time and delays in the proceedings.” It pointed out 247 In particular, they indicated that, “the importance of complying with the standard of due diligence in cases involving the violation of a person’s life or personal integrity […] includes the correct application of autopsy procedures, securing the chain of custody of weapons and any other evidence, taking photographs and utilizing experts, and the gathering and protection of case documents, inter alia” (Merits file, page 206). 248 They added that “the bureaucratization, procedural rigidity, delegation and secrecy of the judicial proceedings” and the regulations “did not grant the possibility of prioritizing or classifying the offense since all the offenses were treated and resolved in accordance with the same procedure,” which were the main problems of the criminal system at the time of the events. Moreover, they stated that the Manual for the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-Legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions cited above “is not of mandatory observance in this case, but is not inapplicable either. This contemplates the same principles that should be applied in investigative proceedings followed in the prosecution of criminal acts committed under the 1984 Code of Criminal Procedures and were applicable in the period when Mr. Carlos Luna López lost his life” (File of attachments to the Report on Merits, pages 284 and 285). However, they stated that they did conduct all the procedures mentioned there. 46