REPORT No. 376/20
CASE 12.902
REPORT ON MERITS
December 15, 2020
JORGE LUIS LÓPEZ SOSA
PARAGUAY
I.
INTRODUCTION
1. On December 11, 2000, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (hereinafter the “Inter-American
Commission," "Commission," or "IACHR") received a petition filed by Mr. Jorge Luis López Sosa (hereinafter
"the petitioner" or "the alleged victim") which alleges that the Republic of Paraguay (hereinafter "the
Paraguayan State," "the State," or "Paraguay") bore international responsibility for violation of his rights to
humane treatment and personal liberty, and that, to date, the proceeding instituted for the acts that affected
him remains unfinished.
2. The Commission adopted Report on Admissibility No. 27/13 on March 20, 2013. 1 On April 1, 2013, the
Commission notified the parties of that report and placed itself at their disposal with a view to reaching a
friendly settlement; however, the conditions for said procedure to be initiated never materialized. The parties
were afforded the regulation time limits to present additional observations as to merits. All information
received was duly relayed between the parties.
II. SUBMISSIONS OF THE PARTIES
A. The Petitioner
3. The petitioner and alleged victim, Mr. Jorge Luis López Sosa, who at the time of the events was a police
officer, claims that he was tortured in order to implicate other persons in the failed coup d'état of May 2000, in
which he says he played no part whatsoever. He alleges that the torture was inflicted by police officers under
the orders of the then-Minister of Interior. At the time he submitted the petition to the IACHR, the petitioner
said that he was detained at the National Police Special Forces Headquarters, where he claims to have been
pressured to reach a financial arrangement with his torturers in exchange for withdrawing his complaint, and
that he was prevented from presenting a criminal complaint for fear of reprisals. He also said that his wife was
in intensive care for a medical condition and he was not allowed to care for her.
4. He claims that on May 19, 2000, he was informed by the Chief of the Ecological and Rural Protection Group
that he was to report to 11th Metropolitan Police Precinct (Comisaría 11 Metropolitana), where he was taken
by police personnel. Once there, he was taken to the Commissioner's office, where he was relieved of his service
weapon and handcuffed with his hands behind him for about 75 hours. In that state, an officer tore off his shirt,
blindfolded him with a folded sheet of paper and packing tape, and placed him on the floor face down next to
another person, who was in the same condition; he then interrogated about his whereabouts the previous night,
during which he was beaten on the soles of his feet on several occasions. At one point, one of the officers stood
on him and pulled his arms upward, causing intense pain in the joints of both shoulders.
5. The petitioner says he that he was moved to other state facilities, including "el cuadrilátero.” He says that
on May 20 he was taken back to the 11th Precinct, where he was kept handcuffed with his hands behind him in
a cell that was bare except for a piece of mattress, and that he was only handcuffed with his hands in front of
him when he was brought food or he needed to wash or go to the bathroom. He says that on May 21, the thenIACHR, Report No. 27/13, Petition 164-01, Admissibility, Jorge Luis López Sosa, Paraguay, March 20, 2013. The Commission declared the
petition admissible in regards to the rights enshrined in Articles 5, 7, 8, and 25 of the American Convention, in connection with the
obligations contained in Articles 1(1) and 2 of the same treaty; as well as to the rights enshrined in Articles 1, 6, and 8 of the Inter-American
Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture.
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