constitutional motion that suspended the hearing because the motion filed attacked the validity of the report on which the forensic anthropology expert was to render an opinion. The constitutional motion, according to the information provided by the parties, was resolved on March 21, 2007. According to the petitioners, the oral and public trial is still pending. 82. Having reviewed the information on the judicial investigations and proceedings that have been initiated, the Commission also observes that the State has not controverted the facts alleged by the petitioners 58, however, it argues that domestic remedies have not been exhausted. The State asks that the petition be found inadmissible, because it does not meet the requirements established in Article 46 of the Convention and Articles 31 and 32 of the Commission’s Rules of Procedure. 83. In this connection, the information presented to the Commission indicates that the domestic remedies duly invoked have not cleared up the many facts alleged, including the whereabouts of the persons 59 allegedly disappeared. 60 In addition, the domestic remedies invoked have succeeded in establishing the criminal liability of only some of the persons who are alleged to have participated in the facts set forth in the petition, notwithstanding the passage of time since the events and even since the signing of the Peace Accords in 1996; to this date, several investigations are pending before the Guatemalan courts. 84. Based on the foregoing considerations, and mindful of the characteristics of the many facts alleged, the Commission concludes that the exception provided for in Articles 46(2)(b) and (c) applies, because there has been an unjustified delay in the decision regarding domestic remedies. 2. Time period for submitting the petition 85. The American Convention establishes that for a petition to be admissible by the Commission it will have to be submitted within six months of the date on which the person allegedly injured has been notified of the final decision. In the claim under analysis, the IACHR has established the applicability of the exceptions to the prior exhaustion requirement under Article 46(2)(c) of the American Convention. In this respect, Article 32 of the Commission’s Rules of Procedure establishes that in those cases in which the exceptions to the prior exhaustion of domestic remedies apply, the petition must be submitted within a time which, in the Commission’s view, is reasonable. To this end, the Commission must consider the date on which the violation of rights is alleged to have occurred and the circumstances of each case. 86. In relation to the specific circumstances of the facts alleged in the petition, the facts that are the subject of the claim happened during the internal armed conflict in Guatemala (19621996), the most violent period of which was 1978 to 1983, under the defacto regimes of General Romeo Lucas García (1978-1982) and General Efraín Ríos Montt (1982-1983). At that 58 In this regard, one should note that the Commission for Historical Clarification, in its report called “Memory of Silence,” accepted by the State as a result of the Peace Accords, verified the following facts: (a) the massacre that occurred in the community of Xococ, on February 7, 1982, in which according to the Report 74 persons were assassinated (55 men and 19 women); (b) the massacre in the village of Río Negro on March 13, 1982, in which, according to this Report, 12 years later it was established that there were three mass graves with a total of 143 skeletal remains (85 of them corresponding to boys and girls, and the rest to women); (c) the massacre that took place in the community of Los Encuentros on May 14, 1982, which according to the report was attacked with grenades and 79 peasant men and 15 women were disappeared; (d) the massacre in the community of Agua Fría on September 14, 1982, in which, according to the report, 92 people died. The report also describes the death of seven members of the community of Río Negro by members of the Ambulatory Military Police. Guatemala Memorias del Silencio. Report of the Commission for Historical Clarification Volume VI illustrative cases. Annex I, pages 47 to 51. The Commission for Historical Clarification was established by the Oslo Agreement of June 23, 1994, signed by the Government of the Republic of Guatemala and the Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG), for the purpose of objectively, fairly, and impartially clearing up the facts regarding human rights violations and the acts of violence associated with the armed confrontation during the period from the beginning of the armed confrontation (1962) and the signing of the Agreement for a Firm and Lasting Peace (1996). 59 Including the disappearance of seven representatives of the Community of Río Negro in 1980. 60 The crime of forced disappearance is continuing or permanent until there is a determination as to the fate or whereabouts of the victim. Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons. 18