2. On the question of the preservation conditions of the documentary collections and the
accessibility of the declassified information
326. Before beginning its examination of this matter, the Commission points out that the concepts of
declassification and accessibility should not be confused. Declassification involves an administrative order to
suspend or to lift the confidential classification of a document or series of documents; accessibility, in contrast,
involves the material conditions that enable third parties to efficiently consult documents or document
archives that have previously been declassified295.
327. In order to guarantee the accessibility of the documentation and, in general, the exercise of the right of
access to information, the declassification decision must be accompanied by the implementation of proactive
policies for the classification, organization, and systematization of files. These actions are of special importance
when in the presence of documentary collections of considerable volume such as those related to the AMIA
case296.
328. In this regard, the Commission highlights that one of the items on the work agenda proposed by the
Argentine State to the petitioners in the framework of the signing of the Agreement on March 4, 2005
contemplated the “furthering the process of survey of the files on the AMIA Case held by the State Intelligence
Secretariat and security forces”297.
329. The IACHR notes that an important part of the files with information related to the AMIA case were until the enactment in March 2015 of Decree 395/15 - in the custody of the State Intelligence Secretariat and
its successor agencies, the Secretary of Intelligence and the Federal Intelligence Agency. The Commission
emphasizes that, during the month of March 2015 and on the occasion of the process of transferring custody of
said files to the UFI AMIA, the prosecutors inspected the headquarters of the AFI's Terrorism Directorate where
they found in a basement documentation of the AMIA case together with another case that was not related to
it298.
330. The Commission considers the various actions taken since the creation in July 2015 of the Special Group
for Documentary Survey and Analysis (GERAD) within the scope of the UFI AMIA constitute progress towards
guaranteeing both the State's duty to preserve all kinds of documentation that is related to the attack, as well
as the right of the parties to access said information.
331. However, the Commission sees the need to recall that in the first UFI AMIA Management Report
published in July 2016, the prosecutors described that the documentation held by the AFI “in many cases
[…]was duplicated and poorly summarized, and in a terrible state of conservation and care. In some cases,
however, hitherto unknown material was found”. Likewise, they assured that the documentary collections were
not digitized and that in the AFI warehouses there were "deficient conditions of space, hygiene, and
temperature and humidity conditions that impair the conservation of the documentation and contribute to its
deterioration”299.
332. Likewise, in its second management report of December 2016, the UFI AMIA warned about “the
difficulties resulting from the deficient initial record of the evidence, the disappearance of tapes and the poor
state of preservation of the evidence” and also stated that "Considering the absence of inventories and
. UNESCO. Universal Declaration on archives. Declaration adopted by the 36th session of the General Conference of UNESCO. Paris.
November 2011. Available at: https://www.ica.org/en/universal-declaration-archives; UNESCO. Guide to the archives of
intergovernmental organizations. CII-99 / WS / 2. Paris, April 1999.
296 Annex 20. UFI AMIA. "The process of declassification of reserved or secret information on the attack and its cover-up" Pages 14 and 15.
Annex 27 to the petitioner's communication dated November 11, 2019.
297 See: Decree 812/2005. Available at: http://servicios.infoleg.gob.ar/infolegInternet/annexs/105000-109999/107751/norma.htm
298 Annex 21. Minutes signed by Vanina L. Capurro, Notary Public of the General Government Notary, dated March 16, 2015. Annex 2 to the
petitioner's communication dated November 17, 2017.
299 Annex 11. UFI AMIA Management Report July 2016, p. 13. Annex 13 to the petitioner's communication dated November 11, 2019.
295
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