Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons (hereinafter "the IACFDP") to the detriment of the persons named in this report. The IACHR made the corresponding recommendations. II. A. POSITIONS OF THE PARTIES The petitioner 6. The petitioner alleged that Juan Carlos Flores Bedregal, a leader of the Partido Obrero Revolucionario and member of the Chamber of Deputies in Congress, disappeared on July 17, 1980, after an attack by soldiers and armed members of paramilitary forces on the headquarters of the Bolivian Workers Confederation (hereinafter "the COB"). She explained that this occurred during a meeting of the Committee for the Defense of Democracy convened prior to an imminent coup d’état announced by the Armed Forces. She alleged that the political leaders and trade unionists present had been captured during that attack after declaring that they were unarmed and had been forced to file down to the street one behind the other with their hands behind their necks. She maintained that after he had been recognized in that group, the socialist leader Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz resisted his attackers and was shot and wounded. Seeing what had happened, the alleged victim had tried to help him, but was then himself "hit in a burst of gunfire." She alleged that the alleged victim and Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz had been taken to the offices of the Army Chief of Staff in one of the ambulances used in the capture of the COB, which was where they had last been seen. She asserted that 30 years later the whereabouts of Mr. Flores Bedregal or of his remains was still unknown. 7. The petitioner presented abundant information regarding a series of claims filed by relatives of the alleged victim with judicial bodies, the Public Prosecutors' Office, and the Executive and Legislative branches of government since the events addressed in the case. She stated that as early as July 17, 1980 a complaint had been lodged, in Bolivia and abroad, regarding the disappearance of the alleged victim, and then with the National Commission on Disappeared Persons. She complained that during the first inquiries State agents had provided false information regarding the whereabouts of the alleged victim, thereby obstructing investigations, and that pressure had been exerted on family member to accept remains that were not those of Mr. Flores Bedregal. 8. The petitioner made mention of the proceedings to determine liability, and to the conviction handed down by the Supreme Court of Justice against the de facto President following the military coup, Luis García Meza , and his collaborators. She argued, in that regard, that the crimes that were committed in the attack on the COB were not properly clarified in those proceedings and that most of the perpetrators of the forced disappearance of the alleged victim were not included in that trial. 9. She also referred to the investigation carried out by the Human Rights Commission of the Chamber of Deputies (hereinafter the "CDH") since 1997 and stated that it had only included Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz as a victim, not Mr. Flores Bedregal, even though both had disappeared in the same circumstances. She pointed out that the Public Prosecutors' Office had opened a criminal investigation in 1999 into several people based on the report issued by the CDH and that the family members of the alleged victim had been able to act as the claimants for civil damages. However, she claimed that said investigation had been faulty and no charges had been brought for the most serious offenses. 10. She said that on December 12, 2007, several of the accused were convicted of various offenses and several sentences were handed down, while six defendants were acquitted. She said she filed appeals including for cassation to challenge that judgment, which was ratified. She argued that the sentences had been minimal, despite the fact that grave human rights violations had been committed. With respect to the crime of forced disappearance, she argued that since it had been legally characterized as a crime until 2006, the judicial authorities had subsumed the facts of the case into less serious forms of criminal conduct. 11. The petitioner alleged that no effective actions had been undertaken to find and return the remains of Mr. Flores Bedregal. She stated that, in connection with the judicial proceedings, family members had requested that the Ministry of Defense declassify the files of the time of the military coup, which would likely contain information as to the whereabouts of the remains. She asserted that despite a number of orders 2