possible,” which it did not do within the period of 21 days established in Article 28 of the Rules of Procedure regarding the provision of annexes to the answer brief. Subsequently, in its final list of declarants, the State offered two expert witnesses and one witness for the hearing and two expert witnesses to render statements via affidavit; it indicated the names of the expert witnesses and provided their curriculum vitaes. Upon reiterating the purposes of the statements that had been initially proposed, the State once again raised its “subsidiary request” (supra Considering clause. 5). Until that moment, the State had not argued any of the exceptions established in Article 57(2) of the Rules of Procedure to justify its offer of evidence. As such, and notwithstanding the possible decision on the admissibility of this evidence, a period was granted to those offered as expert witnesses in order for them to present their observations (supra Having seen clause 11). It was not until the request for an extension (supra Having seen clause 13) that the State expressed that the provision of the final list and curriculum vitaes of the expert witnesses “had been carried out in good faith and heeding to the requirements of the Court” and it argued, as well, that Mr. Eduardo Montealegre Lynett had been appointed as Attorney General of the Nation and that, at the time of his appointment, he was the State’s Agent in this case, a circumstance which “became a situation of force majeure for the State, which affected the attention given to the case and its follow-up, having to take urgent measures to assure due representation.” Thus, it requested that the Court “assess the situation as insurmountable and declare that the expert evidence offered by the State was timely.” 10. The State provided, in a tardy fashion, the identification and curriculum vitaes of the proposed expert witnesses, without offering a clear explanation. Neither did it argue one of the exceptions under Article 57(2) of the Rules of Procedure, until a much later time. As noted by the State itself in its observations to the final lists (infra Considering clause 20), in light of Article 46 of the Rules of Procedure, the final list of declarants is just an opportunity to confirm or retract the offered evidence. Thus, the State’s failure to offer expert evidence at the appropriate time and in the appropriate manner, leads the Court to declare that it is inadmissible. 3 b) Objections of the representatives to the testimony offered by the State 11. The State proposed the testimonial statement in the public hearing of Mr. Jairo García Camargo, Inspector General of the Air Force during the time of the events, as he was part of a commission of military officials “that arrived for the first time at the scene in order to establish what had taken place” in Santo Domingo on December 13, 1998. 12. The representatives considered that this testimony “forms part of a strategy to divert the investigation at an internal level by the high-ranking military officials” and that “it is aimed at a case theory that places responsibility for the massacre on a guerilla group Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), a hypothesis which widely exceeds the factual framework established in the Report on the Merits 61/11 of the [Commission]”. They also argued that General García Camargo “forms part of the so-called Cuerpo de Generales y Almirantes en Retiro de las Fuerzas Militares de Colombia [Retired Body of Generals and Commanders of the Military Forces of Colombia], an organization that […] pushes legislative proposals that benefit military officers who have violated human rights, by way of amnesty laws and pardons, such as the reform to the military criminal forum and the denominated “legal framework for peace’ that is currently before the Congress of the Republic.” Lastly, they considered that “this testimony rendered during the hearing would seriously affect the rights of the victims, who according to the high volume of existing evidentiary material, and the judicial 3 Cf. Case of Fontevecchia and D’Amico V. Argentina. Order of the President of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights of July 27, 2011, Considering clause nine, and Case of Díaz Peña V. Venezuela. Order of the President of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights of November 2, 2011, Considering clause 20. Moreover, Case of El Mozote Massacre and neighboring areas V. El Salvador. Order of the President of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights of March 22, 2012, Considering clause 16. 5