he had been the victim of an attempted arbitrary deprivation of liberty (supra paras. 95 to 97), and that Mr. Vélez Restrepo, and his wife and children, were granted asylum by the United States of America. This shows that the said authorities were not only aware of the risk to the life of Mr. Vélez Restrepo and of the situation that he and his family faced, but also allows the high degree of credibility the authorities gave to their complaints to be measured. In addition to these probative elements, it is worth noting that the State did not conduct a diligent investigation of the incident and, in this regard, acknowledged the violation of the reasonable time in the investigation into the offense of attempted kidnapping (supra para 14(c)). 162. The Court considers it opportune to clarify that, when establishing the facts relating to the said attempted deprivation of liberty, it did not consider it proved that State agents were assigned to provide protection to Mr. Vélez Restrepo before Monday, October 6, 1997,175 because the only evidence of this is the testimony of Mr. Vélez Restrepo. 176 The Court assessed this evidence, taking into account that, in the pleadings and motions brief, the representative stated that Mr. Vélez Restrepo “was unsure whether the supposed DAS agents who visited him [on Friday, October 3, 1997, to prepare a safety and protection plan for his family] were from the DAS or whether they were involved in the attempt” of October 6. Consequently, it is unclear to this Court whether the persons who Mr. Velez thought were DAS agents who, according to him, were supposed to arrive on Monday, October 6, 1997, really were DAS agents. 163. In this regard, the Court asked the State to provide useful information as to whether agents from the Administrative Department of Security (DAS) or from any other State institution had been assigned to provide protection to Mr. Vélez Restrepo prior to October 6, 1997, and were supposed to arrive that day, early in the morning, and to accompany him to work, and also, if appropriate, whether the reason why they did not turn up that day was investigated. The State responded that protection was provided to Mr. Vélez Restrepo from October 6 to 9, 1997, and that “[t]he State has no […] official information regarding the supposed protection by DAS agents before that date; the only element that the State and the Court have is what the representative and the presumed victim have indicated.” Nevertheless, the case file for the offense of threats contains a note dated September 24, 1996, signed by the Director of the Human Rights Unit of the Attorney General's Office addressed to the Director of the DAS, advising him of Mr. Vélez Restrepo’s situation “for the effects that your Department may consider pertinent” (supra para. 109). This document will be assessed by the Court when ruling on the State’s alleged responsibility for not adopting the opportune measures of protection (infra paras. 186 to 204). C.1.c) Determination of the State’s responsibility for the threats, harassment and attempted deprivation of liberty 164. The Court will now refer to the probative elements to which it grants fundamental value in order to consider proved the connection between the threats, harassment and 175 When establishing the incident of the attempted deprivation of liberty, the Commission, in the Merits Report, stated that “Mr. Velez also alleges […] that [the] day [of the attempted deprivation of liberty] the escort assigned by the State, did not arrive at his house.” 176 When testifying at the public hearing before this Court, Mr. Velez stated that, on October 3, 1997, “three DAS agents again [arrived] at the news office and made another assessment of [his] routine” movements and “they undertook to escort him from his home to his work on Monday,” but did not appear that Monday, October 6, in the morning, so that he “had to opt to use public transportation to get to work.” In his statement made by affidavit in 1995, he indicated, similarly, that, on October 6, 1997, he left his home at around 6 a.m. to go to work, and that as soon as he left the house, he noticed that “the two DAS agents had not arrived to escort [him] as was their custom.” 50