duty to conduct the exhaustive and effective investigation required of it, thereby failing to provide judicial
guarantees and protection.
22.
Regarding the right to life and personal integrity, the petitioners maintained that the
State was obliged to prevent any activity that violated rights protected under the Convention, such as forced
disappearance, which constitutes a crime against humanity. They pointed out that Víctor Manuel Isaza Uribe
was disappeared, abducted, which was tantamount to destroying his physical, moral, and mental integrity.
23.
As for the right to personal liberty, the petitioners pointed out that Víctor Manuel Isaza
was, legally detained, with regard to whom the State was duty-bound to provide the same custody,
surveillance, and safeguards as for other detainees, including returning them in the same state as when they
were handed to it.
24.
They alleged that the Colombian authorities had attempted to elude their responsibility on
the pretext that what happened was a prison break organized by the FARC. Accordingly, they maintain that
the State appears to ignore the fact that, in this as in other cases, one of the mechanisms used to perpetuate
impunity is to attempt to shift the focus of investigations, even if it means printing false guerrilla leaflets.
25.
As regards the rights of the family, the right to know the truth and the right to personal
integrity of the relatives, the petitioners alleged that the forced disappearance of Víctor Manuel Isaza Uribe
and the wave of violence unleashed in the region forced the family to move to another municipality within the
same department of Antioquia, for fear of attacks on their personal integrity. Furthermore, they had been
subjected to the pain of going from office to office and having to hear that their family member had taken
advantage of the "jailbreak." They claimed that those replies meant that the family went from being victims to
being labeled accomplices. They also pointed out that in this case they have been denied access to the truth of
what happened, because, 25 years later, the proceedings were still at the preliminary investigation phase,
without Mr. Isaza Uribe's fate and whereabouts having been established. They said that all that had inflicted
grave suffering on his family members, who still do not know whether he is alive or dead.
B.
The State
26.
The State maintained that the facts presented by the petitioners do not prove the alleged
collaboration or acquiescence of State agents through either actions or omissions supposedly coordinated
with, parallel to, or linked to those of the private individuals responsible for the acts committed. Nor had it
been demonstrated that the Colombian State had failed to adopt effective preventive and protection measures
in respect of the persons taken from the municipal prison of Puerto Nare on November 19, 1987, including
Víctor Manuel Isaza Uribe.
27.
The State affirmed that what was certain was that Mr. Isaza had been held at the municipal
prison in Puerto Nare by order of the Criminal Investigation Court 64 of that municipality, which, on October
28, 1987 established his legal status when it issued a restraining order against him in the form of his being
remanded in custody, without release from prison, for the murder of Mr. Humberto García Montoya.. It added
that it had also been established that on the night of November 19, 1987, a group of between 8 and 10 armed
individuals entered the prison and, after disarming and locking up the guards, took four inmates with them,
including Víctor Isaza Uribe, to an unknown destination. The State pointed out that, in a judgment handed
down on November 7, 1989, the 9th Higher Court of Medellín sentenced to 16 years in prison for aggravated
homicide.
28.
It also pointed out that in their statements to the Criminal Investigation Court 64 in Puerto
Nare, two persons who had been inmates at the same prison at the time declared that it looked as if
everything had been planned and that it was an escape facilitated by third parties, a conclusion that was
reached by the Administrative Court in Antioquia, in connection with a direct reparation lawsuit filed by the
family members of Mr. Isaza Uribe, and confirmed by the Council of State. The State added that from the
evidence in the files for the criminal, disciplinary, and administrative proceedings, it transpired that there