10
40.
Note CDH-10,319-763 of October 4, 2002, in which the Secretariat, on the
instructions of the President, requested the State to submit a report on compliance
with the judgment and granted it until November 1, 2002, to do so.
41.
The report of the State of November 12, 2002, in which it indicated that “the
Ministry of Defense had advised that it [was] consulting with Bancafe in the city of
Miami concerning the possibility of transferring or endorsing the term deposit to the
representatives of the minors, since [it was] in the name of that Ministry.” It also
reiterated that it did not owe any interest on the payment to Mrs. Ortiz. Regarding
the search for the remains of the victims, the State indicated that it had not set a
date for conducting the exhumation procedures “for reasons of public order in the
area where they [were] presumably buried.” Lastly, regarding the investigation
being undertaken by the Human Rights Unit of the Office of the Attorney General, it
stated that there was a request to close the investigation stage due to the expiry of
the time limit; a decision was pending in this matter and none of the individuals who
had been accused was affected by detention measures.
42.
The brief of November 20, 2002, in which the representatives of the victims
and their next of kin presented their comments on the State’s report (supra fortyfirst having seen paragraph). In this respect, they asked the Court to request
Colombia to provide information on the measures taken to register the TDCs “in the
name of the legal representatives of the minors and on the measures taken to
ensure that these term deposits offered adequate returns and [were] not affected by
any assessment established by the laws of the United States,” and also on “payment
of the interest owed to the next of kin of María del Carmen Santana […] from
January 1998 to May 2001.”
It also stated that the information provided by the
State on the criminal investigation revealed that impunity would reign with regard to
the facts, because, if there were no grounds that allowed imposing measures of
detention on individuals connected to the case, it would be impossible to file a list of
charges. In this respect, the corresponding measure for this stage of the proceeding
is to preclude the investigation. Lastly, it requested that the State should provide
information on the “measures it ha[d] taken to ensure that these facts w[ould] not
remain unpunished and that those responsible w[ould] be subjected to the
corresponding punishments.”
43.
The brief of November 20, 2002, in which the Commission presented its
comments on the State’s report (supra forty-second having seen paragraph). In this
respect, it reiterated the contents of its previous briefs to the effect that “the failure
to pay the interest owed [to the mother of María del Carmen Santana] is related to
factors under State control, which can be attributed to its role.” It also indicated that
Colombia “ha[d] not provided any explanation about the measures taken since 1995
[…] to at least identify [the] place where the remains of the victims might be found,”
and that “ten years after the facts had occurred, the crime suffered by the victims
remain[ed] unpunished.”
44.
The Order of the Court of November 27, 2002, in which it decided:
1.
That the State ha[d] the obligation to take all necessary measures to comply
effectively and promptly with the judgment of January 29, 1997, delivered by the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights in the Caballero Delgado and Santana case, pursuant to
the provisions of Article 68(1) of the American Convention on Human Rights.
2.
That the State must present to the Court, by March 30, 2003, at the latest, a
detailed report on the measures taken in order to comply with the decisions of the Court
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