63 the keeping of his whereabouts secret and, ultimately, to ensure his right to life (Castillo Páez Case, supra 72, paras. 82 and 83; Suárez Rosero Case, supra 71 para. 65). 165. With regard to Article 25 of the Convention, this Tribunal deems it proven that the persons who were detained and taken before the judicial authorities were the subject of regular proceedings which have now ended and in which there was no claim that they had been deprived of the means of defense. On the contrary, the victims who were detained and cruelly deprived of their lives by members of the Treasury Police of Guatemala (supra, para. 122), had no possibility of exercising the judicial guarantee established in that provision. 166. In effect, the remedy of habeas corpus filed on behalf of Ms. Paniagua-Morales yielded no result because from the time she was detained by members of the Treasury Police her whereabouts were unknown and she was subsequently found dead. This proves the ineffectiveness of the remedy of habeas corpus, which did not protect the victim from the acts which agents of the State perpetrated against her. 167. In the case of Mr. Erik Leonardo Chinchilla, it has not been proven that members of the Treasury Police were implicated in the acts that caused his death. As far as the other murdered persons are concerned, the Court deems it to have been proven that they were denied all access to the judicial remedy that would have guaranteed both their freedom and their lives. Those persons were in the hands of State agents and the State was therefore obliged to create the conditions required for any remedy to have effective results. 168. The Court concludes that the State did not fulfill its obligation to provide effective recourse for Ms. Ana Elizabeth Paniagua-Morales, Mr. Julián Salomón GómezAyala, Mr. William Otilio González-Rivera, Mr. Pablo Corado-Barrientos and Mr. Manuel de Jesús González-López, in violation of Article 25 of the American Convention. XVI VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 1(1) 169. The Commission requested the Court to find that Guatemala violated its obligations enshrined in Article 1(1) of the Convention to respect and guarantee the rights contained therein, inasmuch as that instrument requires Guatemala to determine and identify those responsible for the kidnapping, torture and execution of the victims and punish them appropriately, and to pay indemnity and make reparation to the victims or their relatives. 170. In its answer to the application, the State denied having violated the aforemention Article, since this "would imply failure on its part to observe the guarantees enshrined in the Convention" and claimed that it should not be required to compensate the victims, that being something that should be decided in the domestic courts, and that they should not be required to pay costs and expenses. There were no grounds for condemning it and this implies the inadmissibility of the incidental request. 171. In its brief of final arguments, the Commission declared that the State violated the obligation contained in Article 1(1) of the Convention and that even in the unlikely event that the Court accepts that it was not State agents who perpetrated violations in this case, the State would be responsible for the impunity of those crimes. The Commission went on to say that although some individuals were implicated in the criminal process conducted in the domestic courts, no one had been tried or punished and that, to date, the victims in the case have been denied the right to be compensated and for their aggressors to be punished.