12. Following Herzog’s death, the petitioners say, a military police investigation was launched (“IPM” No. 1.173/75), which determined the cause of death to be suicide by hanging. As a result, the military police investigation was reportedly closed by the military justice system on March 8, 1976. The petitioners maintain that the investigation failed to observe the minimum guarantees of due process and was calculated to support the version of events according to which the journalist had supposedly committed suicide, thus ensuring that the events would continue to remain in impunity. 13. However, the petitioners maintain that Vladimir Herzog’s next of kin—Clarice Herzog (widow) and Ivo Herzog and André Herzog (sons)—filed a civil action for a declaratory judgment (Ação Declaratória No. 136/76), in which they requested that the Federal Union be declared responsible for the arbitrary detention, torture, and subsequent death Herzog, and sought appropriate compensation. According to the petitioners, the aforementioned civil action was filed after evidence had been discovered that led to the conclusion that Vladimir Herzog’s death by torture had been made to look like a suicide—in particular, testimony from other political prisoners who were reportedly in the DOI/CODI facility in São Paulo and heard the journalist being tortured to death. 14. The petitioners point out that the civil action fully established—by means of a judgment issued on October 28, 1978—that Vladimir Herzog was arbitrarily detained, tortured, and killed on DOI/CODI premises in São Paulo. Nevertheless, the petitioners contend that subsequent to that decision, on August 28, 1979, Law No. 6.683 (“the amnesty law” or “Law 6.683/79”) was passed, which did away with criminal responsibility for all individuals who had committed “political or related crimes” in the period from September 2, 1961, to August 15, 1979. The petitioners contend that to this day, the amnesty law in question continues to represent an obstacle for the criminal prosecution of serious human rights violations, like those alleged in this petition, and that it is therefore incompatible with the State’s obligations under the American Convention. 15. Despite the foregoing, the petitioners describe several subsequent attempts made to have those responsible for Vladimir Herzog’s death criminally prosecuted. In this regard, they observe that in 1992 the São Paulo State Public Prosecutor’s Office asked the Civil Police to begin an investigation into the journalist death, after an article appeared in the magazine Isto É, Senhor, on March 25, 1992. In the article, a DOI/CODI official who went by the alias “Captain Ramiro” stated that he had interrogated Vladimir Herzog in the aforesaid military establishment and that he was involved in his death. The petitioners state that “Captain Ramiro” filed a habeas corpus appeal before the Fourth Chamber of the São Paulo Court of Justice, which determined that the police investigation should be closed because of the amnesty law. That decision was reportedly appealed by the São Paulo State Public Prosecutor’s Office, but was upheld by the Superior Court of Justice on August 18, 1993. 16. The petitioners observe that, more recently, several supervening events have shed new light on the human rights violations committed during the Brazilian dictatorship. These include the enactment of Law No. 9.140/95, in which the State acknowledged its responsibility for the deaths and disappearances that took place during the time of the military regime; the subsequent creation of the Special Commission on Political Deaths and Disappearances; the 2007 publication of the Special Commission’s report, “Right to Memory and Truth”; and the judgment handed down on November 24, 2010, by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (“the Inter-American Court”) in the Case of Gomes Lund et al. ("Guerrilha do Araguaia"), among others. The petitioners stress that in the book “Right to Memory and Truth,” the State acknowledged its responsibility for Vladimir Herzog’s death by torture. 17. The petitioners observe that, based on the aforementioned new facts and based on international law, on March 5, 2008 members of the São Paulo Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office—which lacked criminal jurisdiction—asked the São Paulo Attorney General of the Republic to instruct civil servants in the criminal section of the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office to undertake an investigation into Vladimir Herzog’s death. According to the petitioners, that request was based on the fact that the federal justice system would have jurisdiction over that investigation, as the DOI/CODI agents were federal agents; that this 3