that it will make the necessary modifications in order to reflect the previous
considerations. Based on the foregoing, the President deems pertinent to admit the
expert opinion of Ernesto Villanueva Villanueva, proposed by the Inter-American
Commission, and recalls that the value of said opinion shall be assessed in time
fashion, within the context of the existing body of evidence and sound judgment.
The object and receipt of said testimony shall be defined in the operative
paragraphs of this Order (infra Operative Paragraph 1).
B. Items of evidence offered by the
Commission's request to make questions
representatives
and
12.
The representatives of the alleged victims offered, in the definitive lists, the
statements of Wendy Santizo Méndez, Ismael Salanic, Efraín García, Natalia Gálvez,
Carla Alvarado and Froilana Armira, as well as the expert opinions of Katherine
Temple Doyle, Carlos Martin Beristain, Carlos Castresana Fernández, Bernardo R.
Morales Figueroa, Silvio René Gramajo Valdés and Alejandro Valencia Villa. By
means of subsequent briefs, they proposed the testimony of Fredy Peccerelli (supra
Having Seen clauses 11 and 12). In this respect, the following issues shall be
addressed: a) withdrawal of an expert witness designation and of a request for
evidence to the State; b) modifications in the objects of the statements of the
alleged victims and expert witnesses; c) Commission's request to interrogate; and
d) admission of Mr. Peccerelli as witness.
13.
In the first place, the representatives did not include, in their definitive lists,
an expert witness to be identified, proposed in the brief of pleadings and motions
(supra Having Seen clause 2). In this respect, the Presidency notes that, according
to article 46.1 of the Rules of Procedure, the appropriate procedural moment for the
representatives to confirm or retract offers of evidence submitted in the brief of
pleadings and motions is the definitive list requested by the Tribunal. Therefore, by
not confirming, in the definitive list, the expert opinion indicated, expert’s
designation was withdrawn by the representatives at the appropriate procedural
moment. Moreover, the representatives also withdrew, in their definitive list, the
request for the Court to order the State to present a witness (supra Having Seen
clause 2). The President takes note of said withdrawals.
14.
In the second place, the representatives offered, in their definitive list, the
statement of six alleged victims, modifying the initial object of such statements. In
the case of Wendy Santizo Mendez, they had initially pointed out that the object of
her statement would be “her experience, her survival in relation to the torture and
rape”, and they later indicated that it would refer to "the circumstances of the
disappearance of her mother, [...] and her rape, torture and abduction, the impact
of these violations on her and her family, and the fight against impunity, including
her leadership in an organization made up of children of disappeared parents”. In
the case of Ismael Salanic, Efraín García, Natalia Gálvez, Carla Alvarado and
Froilana Armira, they pointed out, at first, that their statements would respectively
refer to "the fight from the beginning of GAM [Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo] to the
present", "the consequences of the disappearance of his daughter”, “her experience
[and] the fight of her husband at GAM in order to find their son", "[her] personal
experience, her mother's experience and the tireless fight of her grandmother" and
"the consequences of the disappearance of her two brothers, the destruction of her
family, the internal migration and the cultural implications". In the definitive list,
the representatives unified the phrasing of the objects under the following common
title: “the way in which the facts occurred before, during and after the
disappearance of [their] relatives, the impact of the disappearance on [them] and
their family, and their fight against impunity”.
15.
This Presidency considers that, even though the representatives made some
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