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She requested that the Court rule the State’s responsibility for the breaches to her
human rights and those of her next of kin, that those responsible for the genocide
for political reasons be prosecuted and punished, and that her and her next of kin be
granted complete reparation for the damages suffered.
EXPERT REPORTS
a)
Proposed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights:
1.
Christopher Birkbeck, criminology specialist
The explosions registered on the first day of the facts in the Criminal Center Castro
Castro corresponded to a military action that is specifically mind grabbing, given the
inmates’ characteristics of imprisonment and relative defenselessness. Two matters
require special attention: the existence of weapons within the criminal center, and
the non-use of alternative mechanisms to the use of force in the executions of the
“Moving Operative 1”.
Pursuant to information provided by survivors and the contents of a record of the
seizure of weapons of May 10, 992 there were weapons within the criminal center at
the time of the facts. The State and the prison administration did not comply with
the security and control standards of prisons. If the possession of weapons had
prevented among inmates, the Government would not have had a reason to expect
resistance from the inmates. Facing the possibility of this type of resistance, nothing
justified the need to act with physical force to end the conflict that arose regarding
the operative, as effectively occurred in the dawno f May 6, 1992.
When facing the resistance of inmates measures such as the following can be
adopted: negotiations with inmates: offer rewards for compliance or threaten with
punishments; restrict certain components of the visitation regimen in the prison; or
use physical force to submit, confine, or transfer the inmates. The use of force
should have been the last measure used. To recur to force immediately weakens and
eliminates the possibility of other strategies. Therefore, the inmates could not trust
that their lives would be respected when the police officers told them to surrender,
which also impeded a peaceful agreement.
The inclusion of sound grenades and shots as means of harassment can be clearly fit
into the definition of torture formulated in the Inter-American Convention to Prevent
and Punish Torture.
Given that physical force represents a means permitted for internal control in
prisons, it is necessary to evaluate if that employed by the State was proportional to
the degree of resistance of inmates and the objective of the operative.
As of the reconstruction of the events made by the Commission for Truth and
Reconciliation and by the Commission’s application, it is possible to distinguish two
phases in the response of inmates before the situation presented. The first of them
can be classified as resistance to authorities; the second as a surrender. The
resistance started prior to May 6, 1992 when the inmates blocked doors and
windows and reinforced the walls of the pavilions and it went on until 6 in the
afternoon of May 9th, moment on which the inmates started surrendering before the
authorities. During the resistance phase, there is no evidence of risks of escape. To
the contrary, the inmates hid in their pavilions as in entrenchment.