were various indications of participation by State agents, [but] there was no investigation into the possible involvement of the FAE.” They added that, following the statement made by Lenin Ordoñez, it could be established that “the abduction and subsequent murder of Marco Palma [Mendoza] was a well-planned act by individuals who had military intelligence training, because they had been members of the FAE for several years, who used credentials granted by the State to prevent a SECAP guard from taking any] action that [would] thwart the abduction they were about to carry out, [and] to avoid police controls.” The representatives emphasized that “the proceedings conducted based on the facts that had occurred against [Mr. Palma], which should have taken an average of 180 days according to the time frames established by law, in practice, took 9 years and 9 months to be decided.” They also indicated that this duration: Constitut[ed] a violation of the case being resolved within a reasonable time; in addition to the fact that the matter was not overly complex given that a few days after the abduction Marco Palma’s corpse appeared and that, if it had been identified promptly, first it would have allowed his family to know what really occurred and, second, it would have expedited the proceedings. Furthermore, few State measures were taken to discover the truth. 71. They also asserted that the application for habeas corpus should have served to “make the State take immediate measures to discover Mr. Palma’s whereabouts and ensure respect for his right to life.” To the contrary, such measures “were not effective,” since the mayors: merely sent communications to State agencies requesting that [Mr. Palma Mendoza be] brought before them, without taking any actions to find him, so that [the] remedies were ineffective to discover [his] whereabouts […] and prevent his murder. Consequently, the representatives indicated that “the State failed to comply with its obligation to grant the next of kin of [Mr. Palma Mendoza] a simple and adequate recourse to determine the responsibility of the authors of such serious acts opportunely.” 72. For its part, the State indicated that “it can be inferred that the rights recognized in Articles 8 and 25 of the Convention […] are of a different nature and, therefore, must not be unified without any reason, because the violation of each of them will be autonomous, owing to their different content.” Regarding Article 8, the State indicated that “the alleged victim’s lawyers […] did not exhaust the legal procedures available to demand an investigation on criminal procedural matters.” It asserted that “[o]wing to factors inherent in the circumstances that existed at that time, the principle of due diligence was limited to using the existing legislation and, based on those legal grounds, to making the best efforts to prevent and to comply with the State’s obligations”; that “it never […] abandoned the case; that its intention was to use all available means to find Mr. Palma [Mendoza] and those responsible for the crime so as to be able to prosecute them,” and that it should be considered that the case was “factually” and “legally” complex, based on numerous factors (cf. infra para. 77). 73. It also argued that: The fact that a special procedure carried out within another investigation, in a different province, contributed to the investigation, only proves the efficiency and functionality of the domestic legal system at the time, because measures were taken that complied with the provisions of the criminal laws, thus avoiding impunity. Thus, it maintained that the OID made “important” efforts and “that there was a comprehensive investigation” involving “the professional work of the police in four provinces, Pichincha, Manabí, Tunguragua and Guayas.” In this regard, it concluded that “there was effective coordination” and “communication between the different agencies.” It underscored 25