The facts of the case relate to the illegal arrest, forced disappearance and extrajudicial execution of a professor and a group of students from the Enrique Guzmán y Valle National University in La Cantuta, Lima. This event took place at dawn on July 18, 1992 and was carried out by Peruvian army personnel and agents from the “Colina” group. This group, assigned to the National Intelligence Service, was responsible for the identification, control and elimination of those people who were suspected of belonging to insurgent or opposition groups to President Fujimori’s regime, through the systematic use of indiscriminate extrajudicial executions, mass murder, forced disappearances and torture.

Investigations were opened which were processed in military courts, but the incidents remained in impunity, and this situation was reinforced by the application of amnesty laws. According to the interpretation of the IA Court, the events at La Cantuta were fostered by a generalized situation of impunity towards serious human rights violations of that period, favored and tolerated by the absence of judicial guarantees and the inefficiency of legal institutions to tackle systematic human rights violations.

The IA Court applied standards relating to the forced disappearance of people and to the State’s obligation to investigate

ex officio

, without delay, and in a serious, impartial and effective manner.