interrogations and even physical and mental torture, were methods frequently used by some members of the Army to achieve certain results, all with the awareness and/or acquiescence of senior military commanders and even of Heads of State at the time.” 566 In addition, specifically with regard to the events of the Palace of Justice, the 51st Criminal Court indicated that “some of those rescued from the Palace of Justice were taken to the premises of the Cavalry School […] and/or to other military facilities to be interrogated and subjected to significant abuse and ill-treatment in order to obtain information that could be useful to the Armed Forces; an activity that, this court insists, constituted common practice at that time.” 567 Likewise, the Superior Court of Bogota stated that “[b]efore, during and after the events of the Palace of Justice, the Cavalry School was used as a center for the practice of unconstitutional acts by State agents, which included not only illegal deprivations of liberty, but also extended to crimes against humanity, by including torture and forced disappearances.” 568 B.1.2) The statements of Orlando Quijano and José Vicente Rubiano Galvis 376. Orlando Quijano has testified on the presumed ill-treatment he suffered twice before domestic criminal investigation bodies (in 1986, before an investigating court and, in 2006, before the Prosecution Service), as well as a third time, in 2013, before the Inter-American Court. In addition, in 1986, he wrote an article for the journal “El Derecho del Derecho,” in which he narrated what had happened to him, and he ratified the contents in his statement before the Prosecution Service in 2006. 569 Therefore, the Court has three statements made by Mr. Quijano, in 1986, 2006 and 2013, and an article he wrote that are all consistent as follows: (i) he left the Palace of Justice in the afternoon of November 6, 1985, together with other individuals who were in a first-floor office when the M-19 took over the Palace; (ii) he 566 Judgment of the 51st Criminal Court of the Bogota Circuit of April 28, 2011 (evidence file, folio 24423). Similarly, in its first instance judgment in the proceedings against the Commander of the COICI, this court stated that “the capture, arrest and questioning of individuals suspected of belonging to illegal groups, as set out in ‘Intelligence Operations Plan No. 002 against the group calling itself the M-19’ were frequent methods used by the members of the State’s intelligence agencies who, purporting to abide by the law, obtained the desired results by implementing practices that, in many cases, were contrary to human dignity.” Judgment of the 51st Criminal Court of the Bogota Circuit of December 15, 2011 (evidence file, folio 20852). 567 Judgment of the 51st Criminal Court of the Special Circuit of December 15, 2011 (evidence file, folios 21109 and 21110). 568 To reach this conclusion, the Superior Court took into account, inter alia, that: “(i) at that time, in Latin America, the so-called ‘doctrine of national security’ was still in force, under which the Armed Forces directed their actions against internal, rather than external, enemies; in other words, nationals of the country who professed a communist ideology, a definition that was extended to other forms of left-wing political thought (which, in Colombia, included the insurgents of the M-19), who had to be eliminated. This doctrine was disseminated in the teachings of the […] Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation or the US Army School of the Americas, to which […] some members of the Colombian Armed Forces were sent and were trained in the application of extermination methods ranging from subtle forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment to the forced disappearance of the ‘internal enemy,’ as can be observed in documents declassified by the Pentagon in 1996; (ii) the existence of criminal acts attributed to members of the State’s security agencies (in their capacity as an organized power structure) has been proved; these included practices that disregarded the standards to be applied in internal armed conflicts and in war; […] (iii) members of the State’s security agencies carried out illegal retentions […], without reporting the arrests or recording them in official logbooks or documents, a practice concurrent with the systematic denial of information on those retained or the denial of their arrest, and (iv) the acknowledgement by the courts, in decisions that are res judicata, of the Cavalry School and the North Canton as illegal retention centers in which individuals were tortured and then disappeared.” Judgment of the Superior Court of Bogota of January 30, 2012 (evidence file, folios 23319 to 23321 and 23324). Similarly, regarding the implementation of the doctrine of national security in the actions of the Colombian Armed Forces, see, summary of the written version of the expert opinion of Federico Andreu Guzmán (evidence file, folio 36351 to 36354). 569 Regarding his testimony before the Prosecution Service, this indicates: “Question: Did what you wrote in the journal correspond to what really happened? Answer: […] in one part I gave an account of what I experienced, that is true.” Testimony of Orlando Quijano of June 2, 2006, before the Prosecution Service (evidence file, folio 1266). 129