The facts of the case refer to the arbitrary detention and torture of Maritza Urrutia Garcia due to her connection with the insurgency group, the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP), in July 1992. After her arrest, the victim was held in a clandestine detention center for 8 days and forced to issue a communiqué to the public, which her captors had previously prepared. Mrs Urrutia subsequently left the country and obtained refugee status in Mexico.

The IA Court placed the events in the context of internal armed conflict at beginning of the process of peace negotiations between the government and the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unit, evidencing the Army’s practice of capturing guerrilla fighters and secretly detaining and torturing them in order to obtain useful information.

The IA Court established standards regarding the situation of illegally detained persons and concerning the prohibition of torture in circumstances of internal armed conflict, and evidenced that the acts have remained in impunity.