REPORT No. 84/13
CASE 12.482
MERITS
VALDEMIR QUISPEALAYA VILCAPOMA
PERÚ
November 4, 2013
I.
SUMMARY
1.
On February 3, 2004, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (hereinafter the
"Inter-American Commission," the "Commission" or "the IACHR") received a complaint filed by the
Human Rights Commission (Comisión de Derechos Humanos, COMISEDH), (hereinafter "the
petitioners"), in which it was claimed that the State of Peru (hereinafter “Peru,” “the State” or “the
Peruvian State”) violated certain rights enshrined in the American Convention on Human Rights
(hereinafter “the Convention” or “the American Convention”) to the detriment of Valdemir Quispealaya
Vilcapoma, (hereinafter “the victim”), when he was assaulted by his military instructor with a firearm in
his right eye and in the head on January 23, 2001, at a time when he was serving in the Communications
Company No. 31 of the December 9th Batallion in the Peruvian army in the city of Huancayo, department
of Junin. It is alleged that as a result of this assault, the victim lost the vision in his right eye and that
the criminal proceeding was transferred to the jurisdiction of the military courts, which acquitted the
alleged perpetrator.
2.
On February 25, 2001, the Commission adopted Admissibility Report No. 19/05, in which
it concluded that the petition was admissible with respect to the alleged violations of the right to
personal integrity, the right to judicial guarantees and the right to judicial protection, enshrined
respectively in Articles 5, 8, and 25, in relation to Article 1(1) of the American Convention, as well as in
Article 8 of the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture, to the detriment of Valdemir
Quispealaya Vilcapoma.
3.
At the merits stage, the petitioners alleged that Mr. Quispealaya was the victim of
physical and psychological abuse by his military instructor and that that abuse was intended to discipline
and punish the alleged victim, and as such, they considered that the acts constituted torture. They
stated that these events were not investigated, despite the fact that at the time they took place, there
was a context in the voluntary military service of tolerating the practice of torture, as the United Nations
Committee Against Torture and the Ombudsman of Peru observed. They state that although the
criminal proceeding was initiated in the civil courts by virtue of the complaint presented by the alleged
victim’s mother, the Supreme Court decided that the criminal military jurisdiction had competence over
the matter because it was a crime committed during the performance of duties (delito de función). This
proceeding resulted in the acquittal of the party who was allegedly responsible. They indicate that
following the approval of the Admissibility Report in 2007, the process was reopened in the civil courts,
which proceeded to close the case in spite of the presence of medical-legal reports that documented
Mr. Quispealaya’s injury. They indicate that as a result, there was no effective judicial remedy available
and that the State no provided the alleged victim with reparations that were proportionate to the
serious nature of the torture suffered. The petitioners indicate that in the 11 years since the events
took place, the torture that Mr. Quispealaya suffered has caused an irreversible visual disability that has
had an impact on his personal and family life, as it has been an obstacle to his finding steady work in