JOINT OPINION OF JUDGES SERGIO GARCIA RAMIREZ, HERNAN SALGADO PESANTES AND ALIRIO ABREU BURELLI 1. The State violated the right to life, protected under Article 4 of the American Convention on Human Rights, to the detriment of Julio Milciades Cerón Gómez, William Hamilton Cerón Rojas, Edebraes Norberto Cerón Rojas, Artemio Pantoja Ordóñez and Hernán Javier Cuarán Muchavisoy. 2. It has been duly proven that the violation was caused by the conduct of agents of the State. 3. The facts in this case cry out for a judgment of conviction. Those of us who signed this opinion all share the view that conviction was the proper judgment. 4. The American Convention states that the function of international protection of human rights is one of “reinforcing or complementing the protection provided by the domestic law of the American States.” States must, first of all, rule on the unlawfulness of the acts; the international court is called upon to rule on the unlawfulness of the facts only when a State fails to do so. 5. In the case the Court examined, Colombia’s administrative law courts had, in two separate instances, ruled that the conduct was unlawful and that the State was liable, and thus delivered judgments of conviction. 6. The facts in this case and the conduct of the agents of the State are described, in compelling terms, in the February 23, 1995 ruling of the Nariño Administrative Law Court. Excerpts from the judgment appear below: a) “The National Police have grossly misrepresented the circumstances of time, mode and place that put them (the victims) at the scene of the events, so much so that they (the victims) are presented as anti-social and were treated as such following their unjust execution; the fiction concocted with regard to their deaths is completely at odds with the truth.” b) “It was there, in the house to which the (Mocoa) Provincial Prosecutor refers that these unfortunate citizens were killed. They were then portrayed as criminals. The burning of their clothes would eventually become incriminating evidence of the way in which the respondent (Nation-National Police) has twisted the facts in this case, as the bodies then turned up dressed in uniforms of the National Police.” c) The “regrettable acts perpetrated at the Las Palmeras School (were) not the anti-subversive clash that the Police described. The analysis of the bullet holes in the schoolhouse showed that all were made by bullets fired into the schoolhouse from the outside. Concerning the visibility factor and the direct line of view at the scene of the incident, the record shows that vegetation in the area of this barbarous act is sparse.” d) “The report of the Commandant of the Fourth Company of the Special Armored Force, dated January 23, 1991 (…) is a lie, because there was never any armed clash with subversives at Villa Nueva; (the victims) were not dressed in National Police uniforms before being executed by National Police units; Mr. Julio Milciades Cerón Gómez, who died together with his (sons) Guido William and Edebraes Dimas, were not ‘outlaws’ and were carrying none of the weapons of war or provisions described in that report.”

Select target paragraph3