11. The petition alleges that on September 16, 1973, Mr. Garcia Lucero was arbitrarily arrested by militarized police ("Carabineros") in the city of Santiago. During his initial detention he was held incommunicado and was not informed of any charges against him. The petition alleges that Mr. Garcia was tortured in various ways by members of the Carabineros. Every two or three hours they tied up his hands and feet, blindfolded him, hit him on the head, and immersed him in water. On one occasion, when he was falling semi-conscious to the floor, one of the Carabineros hit him with a rifle and cut open his forehead. He almost lost the sight of one eye, and his face is still disfigured by scars. 12. The complaint declares that Mr. Garcia was subjected to other forms of torture, such as being placed on a chair covered with blood stains that, his torturers said, came from persons they had previously killed, and that if Mr. Garcia did not confess his daughter would be killed right there in front of him. According to the petitioners, after two days of continuous torture and degrading treatment, the police transferred the petitioner to the National Stadium, where the torture intensified. One of the forms of torture repeatedly inflicted upon him was to tie his hands to a wooden pole lifted by a crane. Another repeated torture was the application of electric shocks: he was submerged in a barrel of water and then taken out and, with his clothes still wet, electricity was applied to him with an instrument called the “picana” (cattle prod). Mr. Garcia was held in the National Stadium for approximately, two months cut off from any contact with his family. When his wife finally found out where he was and went to visit him, she was allowed to visit him for only half an hour before he was moved to “Chacabuco”, a concentration camp in Antofagasta, 2000 km from Santiago. Mr Garcia spent approximately 13 months in the concentration camp. While there, he underwent an operation to repair a hernia in the groin resulting from the torture inflicted upon him. 13. The petition also states that in November 1974 the Ministry of the Interior issued its first decree ordering the expulsion of an initial 100 persons, including Mr. Garcia, from Chilean territory. Pursuant to that decree, Mr. Garcia was escorted from Tres Alamos to the airport on June 12, 1975, and departed with his family for the United Kingdom, where he has been living since that date. The petitioner is still unable to work as result of the injuries caused by the torture inflicted upon him while detained for fifteen months in Chile. 14. Subsequent to these events, on April 8, 1978, the Military Government issued Decree Law No. 2191 (the “Self Amnesty Law”) which, the petitioners argue, rendered all judicial proceedings futile and ineffective. The Chilean courts have repeatedly applied that Decree and the Supreme Court has affirmed its constitutionality, eliminating any prospect of success for an appeal to the domestic courts, and thereby erecting a final obstacle to any type of reparations in the present case. 15. According to the petitioners, after the reestablishment of democratic government in Chile in March 1990 there began a period of transition which produced numerous reforms to the country's legal system. Nevertheless, the reparations measures undertaken by democratic governments to address human rights violations of the past did not include torture survivors, leaving them deprived of any legal remedy and any other form of compensation. Thus, the torture victims are today still without access to justice and they have received no compensation through any administrative act or procedure. The petitioners argue that, more than 15 years after its ratification of the American Convention, the State has not provided effective remedies for the victims of torture, and has thereby violated its international obligations. 16. The petitioners maintain that, despite the Government's publication on November 10, 2004 of the report of the National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture (the “Valech Commission”), in which the Mr. Garcia is included in the list of persons recognized as victims, that report does not in itself constitute a full measure of preparation, nor do the measures that it proposes. Specifically, the Valech Commission report reveals the atrocities reported by more than 35,000 Chileans, including more than 3,000 women who were raped, but it omits the names of the torturers. On December 24, 2004, Law 19,992, "Law on reparations for recognized victims of political imprisonment and torture", was adopted, establishing a compensatory pension and other benefits in favor of persons on the "list of political 3