7 latitude to evaluate the evidence provided to it, in accordance with the principles of logic and on the basis of experience.4 29. Based on the foregoing, the Court will now proceed to examine and weigh all the elements of the body of evidence in this case. A) DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE 30. The Inter-American Commission provided presenting its application brief (supra para. 8).5 documentary evidence when 31. The representatives presented several attachment as documentary evidence, together with the requests and arguments brief (supra para. 9).6 32. The Commission forwarded the statements (affidavits) made before notary public by the witnesses, Benjamín Manuel Jerónimo and Eulalio Grave Ramírez, and by the expert witnesses, Luis Rodolfo Ramírez García and José Fernando Moscoso Möller (supra para. 12),7 as required by the President in the order of February 19, 2004, (supra para. 11). The Court will now summarize the relevant parts of these statements. a) Statement of Benjamín Manuel Jerónimo, victim He was born in Plan de Sánchez and has lived there ever since. He is 50 years old. At the time of the facts, he farmed and made roof tiles. He speaks Maya-Achí. Beginning in 1981, the Guatemalan Army began to visit the village of Plan de Sánchez regularly. It rounded up the men, youths and adults for obligatory military service. In addition, there were ten groups of Civil Self-Defense Patrols (hereinafter “the PAC”), each one comprising ten men, in the village of Plan de Sánchez, and they monitored and investigated everything that happened in the community. On Sunday, July 18, 1982, the day of the massacre, the Army entered Plan de Sánchez at 2 p.m. At that time, the witness was hidden in the woods, 75 meters from his sister’s house. Subsequently, the soldiers approached his sister’s house, where they collected all the inhabitants of Plan de Sánchez, and other individuals they had captured on the way; they separated the children, and the girls of 15 to 20 years old. Then they began the massacre. First, they tortured the elderly, because they said the latter were guerrillas; then they threw two grenades and fired weapons. Lastly, they threw gasoline on the house and set fire to it. The young girls they had separated were tortured and raped. After executing the women, the men and the elderly, they took the children one by one, smashed them against the ground, and threw them into the flames. No one could escape because the Army had surrounded the entrance and exit of Plan de Sánchez, as well as the adjacent roads. 4 Cf. Case of Tibi, supra note 3, para. 67; Case of the “Juvenile Reeducation Institute”, supra note 3, para. 64, and Case of Ricardo Canese, supra note 3, para. 48. 5 Cf. file of appendixes to the application, appendixes 1 to 19, folios 73 to 972. 6 Cf. file of appendixes to the requests and arguments brief, tome I, appendixes 1 to 14, folios 1 to 222, and tome II, appendixes 15 to 28, folios 223 to 468. 7 Cf. statements made and expert reports given before notary public (affidavits) submitted by the Commission (file on preliminary objections and merits and reparations, tome III, folios 470 to 518).