29 or with abuse or excessive force. Likewise, the members of groups or organized gangs with terrorist purposes, insurgents, subversive or with any other criminal purpose commit the crime of forced disappearance when they commit plagiarism or a kidnapping, participating as members or collaborators of said groups or gangs. The crime is considered continuous until the victim is released. The person accused of the forced disappearance will be punished with a prison sentence of twenty-five to forty years. The death penalty will be imposed instead of the maximum prison term when due to or as a result of the forced disappearance the victim were to suffer serious or very serious injuries, permanent psychic or psychological trauma, or they die. 83. Regarding this matter, the expert Helen Mack established that: As of 1996, with the introduction of the figure of forced disappearance, the cases that had been previously classified as plagiarism or kidnapping were transferred to a specific prosecutor’s office of the Public Prosecutors’ Office dedicated to investigating the violations to human rights occurred during the internal armed conflict. However, since this criminal definition came into force, the Public Prosecutors’ Office has only made one accusation for forced disappearance. In Guatemala, the legal debate on forced disappearance has not yet been settled, in the sense that there has not been a legal sentence establishing the criterion suitability of declaring forced disappearances in cases prior to the validity of the reform of the Criminal Code. However, there are still political positions that question the nonretroactive nature of this criminal definition and the classification of continuous crime, promoted by groups in tune with the military power structures, upon which the majority of the responsibility for the violations to human rights occurred during the internal armed conflict falls. According to the Inter-American Convention on the Forced Disappearance of Persons, of which Guatemala is a party, the criminal action and punishment derived from this crime are not subject to a statute of limitation, and their systematic practice constitutes a crime against humanity. However, the retroactivity of forced disappearances is commonly argued by the defense of any of those involved in the commission of these violations with the clear purpose of closing the possibility of starting judicial proceedings on the load of forced disappearances occurred in the past.94 84. As previously stated, the Court has established in its constant jurisprudence that forced disappearance constitutes a multiple violation to several rights protected by the Convention, of a permanent or continued nature.95 (supra para. 52) Due to its permanent nature, while the fate or whereabouts of the victim or their remains is not established, the forced disappearance continues in execution. 85. In the same sense, Article III of the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearances establishes that the crime of forced disappearance will be considered continued or permanent as long as the fate or whereabouts of the victim have not been determined (supra para. 52). The need to consider the crime of forced disappearance integrally in an autonomous manner and with a continuous or permanent nature, with its multiple elements interconnected in a complex manner and all related criminal facts, is concluded not only from Article III in the InterAmerican Convention of Forced Disappearances, the travaux préparatoires of the 94 Cfr. brief presented by the expert Helen Mack Chang during the public hearing held before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on April 30, 2008 (dossier of merits, volume III, folio 521). 95 Cfr. Case of Velásquez Rodríguez v. Honduras, supra note 20, para. 155; Case of Goiburú et al. v. Paraguay, supra note 67, paras. 81; and Case of Heliodoro Portugal v. Panama, supra note 17, paras. 106 through 111.