documents. Irrespective of this, the petitioners report that on February 22, 2001, a
judge declared that the habeas corpus injunction filed against the arrest was
admissible.
9.
The petitioners state that on February 23, 2001, an official of the Chilean
consulate visited the immigration office and reached a verbal agreement with Mr.
Molina, whereby the family would leave for Arica, Chile, on February 24, by means of
regular road passenger transportation. However, the petitioners note that this was
accepted after intense pressure from the immigration office in La Paz for an agreement
to be reached and for them to be removed from Bolivian territory. The petitioners add
that their illegally confiscated documents were not returned to them until they were
handed over to the Peruvian police. The petitioners recall that on Friday, February 23,
they were about to leave and were given bus tickets for the journey from La Paz to the
Chilean city of Arica at 7:00 a.m. the following day.
10.
The petitioners report that at 6:30 a.m. on February 24, 2001, two 4WD Jeeps
with tinted windows, carrying six individuals dressed as civilians and two armed police
officers, led by Mr. Molina – who was utterly inebriated – intercepted them as they
were on their way to the bus station with their children. They say firearms were
pointed at them and that they were beaten, insulted, and humiliated, that their hands
were tied behind their backs and their faces were covered with their coats, and that no
explanations were offered. They were brutally forced into the vehicles: the children in
one and the adults in the other. In response to the petitioners’ repeated requests for
an explanation, the agents of the State merely replied with insults, physical violence,
and death threats and by pointing their guns at them. Their journey in the Jeeps lasted
more than two hours. The vehicles were then parked, and they were only let out after
another hour had passed. When they got out they saw that they had been taken to the
Río Desaguadero international bridge on the border between Peru and Bolivia. The
petitioners claim they were locked in a room and all their belongings confiscated; after
waiting another hour they were taken out and led to the border, with some of the
suitcases they had initially been carrying.
11.
The petitioners relate that upon crossing the border, they were handed over to
the Peruvian police and described as terrorists who had been found with subversive
material; the public prosecutor on duty at the border expressed great surprise at this,
since their papers were both in order and current. Because of the charges leveled at
the petitioners, the prosecutor had to consult with Lima about the family’s previous
case; consequently, she could neither order their release or receive the new
accusation. The petitioners say that they were kept under arrest with their children in
the border town of Puno until March 3, 2001, when the minors were handed over to
relatives. The petitioners were taken to Lima, where the criminal police kept them
incommunicado in uncomfortable cells. Mrs. Tineo Godos was kept in detention until
March 6 and then transferred to the Santa Mónica de Chorillos Penitentiary, and Mr.
Pacheco Osco was, on March 8, transferred to the Miguel Castro Castro Penitentiary.
Both of these are maximum security facilities with severe restrictions that undermine
human rights. Mrs. Tineo Godos and Mr. Pacheco Osco were released on July 3, 2001,
once their innocence had been proven. The petitioners add that the sequence of events
described caused their children serious psychological harm, including nightmares and
nighttime sobbing attacks, loss of speech, frequent crying jags, and regular
exclamations that someone wanted to kill them.
12.
With reference to the exhaustion of domestic remedies, they state they were
unable to pursue the habeas corpus remedy, lodged on February 21, 2001, by the La