11 58. Based on the above, the Court will now examine and assess the set of items that constitute the body of evidence in the instant case, following the rules governing reasoned judgment arrived at freely and on the basis of admissible evidence, within the relevant legal framework. A) DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE 59. As the provisional measures were being processed, the Inter-American Commission, the alleged victims’ representatives and the State submitted various documents. 12 60. The parties supplied documentary evidence in the form of the application, the briefs containing their pleadings, motions and evidence, the brief of preliminary objections, the answer to the application and the observations on the brief of pleadings, motions and evidence (supra paragraphs 27, 32 and 33). 13 61. On March 11, 2004, the Inter-American Commission forwarded the sworn affidavit that Mrs. Laura Mariela González Picado (supra para. 42) gave in the presence of a public civil servant. 14 The Court summarizes the pertinent parts of that affidavit below. Testimony of Laura Mariela González Picado, wife of alleged victim Mauricio Herrera Ulloa. Laura Mariela González Picado has been married to Mauricio Herrera Ulloa since 1995. “From the time [they] were engaged and newlyweds, [her] husband was very tense and depressed [,…] as he had been threatened with criminal indictment for articles he published about scandals involving a Costa Rican diplomat accredited to a number of countries and an international agency headquartered in Europe.” Her husband was a journalist at the time, covering the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Costa Rica and the country’s diplomatic service. In January 1996, the diplomat in question brought two complaints, “which made [her] husband even more tense.” The first trial on the two complaints came three years later. Her husband was “acquitted of any blame. However, the diplomat filed a writ of cassation […] with the Third Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, which reversed the 12 Cf. Volume of annexes accompanying the Inter-American Commission’s request for provisional measures; volume of documents supplied by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the State during the public hearing held on May 22, 2001, in connection with the request for provisional measures; and folios 94 to 126 and 207 to 351 of Volume I of the file on provisional measures in the Case of “La Nación” newspaper; and folios 377 to 404, 4421 to 423, 469, 477 and 626 to 632 of volume II of the file on provisional measures in the “La Nación” Case. 13 Cf. File of annexes to the application filed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, volumes I, II and III, annexes 1 to 22, folios 537 to 1682; annexes F) to M) of the March 31, 2003 brief of pleadings, motions and evidence from the alleged victims’ representatives (record on preliminary objections and possible merits, reparations and costs, volume I, folios 340 to 405); annex to the brief submitted by the alleged victims’ representatives on May 20, 2003 (file on preliminary objections and possible merits, reparations and costs, volume II, folios 746 to 759); annexes 1 to 2 of the brief filed by the State in answer to the application of May 20, 2003, (file on preliminary objections and possible merits, reparations and costs, Volume II, folios 599 to 741). 14 Cf. folios 1107 to 1109 of Volume III of the file on preliminary objections and possible merits, reparations and costs.