the military authorities claimed that Captain Álvaro Artaza Adrianzén had been declared
presumed dead.
13. The petitioners maintained that there were discrepancies in the Armed Forces’ version of
the supposed death of Officer Álvaro Artaza Adriazén. They pointed out that the Navy Marines’
version was that Álvaro Artaza Adriazén had allegedly been abducted by unknowns on
February 2, 1986, precisely when the ordinary justice system was moving forward with the
preliminary inquiries into the disappearance of dozens of persons taken to the Huanta military
base between July and August of 1984. At the time Captain Álvaro Artaza Adriazén was the
base’s commanding officer. The petitioners noted that the Final Report of the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission (hereinafter “the CVR”) raised serious doubts about the
circumstances under which Captain Álvaro Artaza Adriazén was alleged to have disappeared
and recommended to the Public Prosecutor’s Office that it investigate the facts and take any
and all necessary measures to dispel the doubts as to the officer’s whereabouts.
14. The petitioners observed that the CVR’s Final Report documented the discovery, on August
22, 1984, of 50 bodies in clandestine graves in the community of Pucayacu, province of
Acobamba, Huancavelica department, only a few kilometers from Huanta province in the
department of Ayacucho.
The report states that the bodies were stripped to make
identification difficult and many of them bore signs of torture. It mentions that 57 inhabitants
of Huanta had been reported as disappeared between July and August 1984, after being
detained and transported to the Navy Marine base set up in the local stadium. The section of
the CVR report that documents the discovery of 50 bodies in shallow graves in Pucayacu
makes reference to the alleged forced disappearance of Mr. Rigoberto Tenorio Roca 4.
15. The petitioners asserted that based on the findings contained in the CVR’s final report, on
September 27, 2005 the Office of the First Supra-provincial Prosecutor of Ayacucho brought a
formal criminal complaint against the then head of the Ayacucho Political Military Command,
Adrián Huamán Centeno, the then head of the Huanta Political Military Command, Alberto
Rivero Valdeavellano, and the then head of the Huanta Counter-subversive Base, Augusto
Gabilondo García del Barco, for the alleged crimes of forced disappearance and murder of
Rigoberto Tenorio Roca and of another 12 residents of the province of Huanta. 5 They added
that on November 28, 2006, the Lima Supra-provincial Criminal Court declared that instituting
the inquiry against the aforementioned Naval Marine officers was out of order. 6
16. The petitioners pointed out that on September 25, 2007, the National Criminal Court
confirmed the decision of the Supra-provincial Criminal Court of Ayacucho to drop the criminal
inquiry against Alberto Rivero Valdeavellano as out of order. They reported, however, that the
Criminal Chamber nullified the finding of the court a quo that had dismissed the
commencement of a criminal inquiry against Adrián Huamán Centeno and Augusto Gabilondo
García del Barco. The National Criminal Court ordered that the criminal complaint was to be
sent back to the Public Prosecutor’s Office to introduce corrections in accordance with the
Court’s observations.
17. The petitioners argued that although more than 25 years have passed since Rigoberto
Tenorio Roca was allegedly disappeared by agents of the State, the investigations are still in
4 Final Report of the CVR, 2003, Volume VII, Chapter 2.11, Ejecuciones Extrajudiciales Comprobadas en las Fosas de
Pucayacu (1984) [Extrajudicial Executions Discovered in the Graves at Pucayacu (1984)], pp. 100 and 111, available
in Spanish at http://www.cverdad.org.pe/ifinal/index.php.
5 The copy of the criminal complaint which the petitioners supplied in their communication of February 1, 2007, shows
that the Office of the First Supra-provincial Criminal Prosecutor of Ayacucho sought a criminal inquiry against other
persons as well, persons accused of having killed six members of the Callquí Evangelical Presbyterian Church on
August 1, 1984. This document also prays the court to commence an inquiry against the same three members of the
military -Adrián Huamán Centeno, Alberto Rivero Valdeavellano and Augusto Gabilondo García del Barco- for the
alleged murder of Nemesio Fernández Lapa and 49 other persons whose bodies were discovered in Pucayacu.
6 In a communication received on February 1, 2007, the petitioners quoted the following excerpt from the court ruling
handed down by Lima’s Supra-provincial Criminal Court: “there is no evidence implicating (the accused) in the criminal
events or indicating that they had direct knowledge of the events under investigation, evidence that would allow one
to conclude that the suspects would have been able to avoid a negative outcome with any degree of probability.
Although the prosecutor has established the hierarchy in 1984, the fact that they had command and control of their
subordinates is not sufficient grounds to commence an inquiry against them.”
3