6 25. On September 5, 1997, the State designated Mr. Mario Cavagnaro Basile as its agent, and Mr. Walter Palomino Cabezas as its alternate agent. 26. On September 22, 1997, the State asked the Court to indicate which of the two versions of the application –the new version (supra 23) or the version submitted on July 22 of that year- should be considered “as valid”. 27. On September 24, 1997, the Secretariat, following the President’s instructions, informed the State that in view of its request for clarification and to ensure the “transparency of the process,” the President had decided to suspend the time limits given to answer the application and to interpose preliminary objections, until such time as the Commission had presented the clarifications -requested that same day- of the corrections made to the original text of the application. 28. On October 1, 1997, the State filed ten preliminary objections under Article 31 of the Rules of Procedure. 29. On October 6, 1997, the Commission submitted a “list of corrections made [...] to the application” of July 22, 1997 (supra 1 and 23). The next day, the Secretariat asked the State to present its observations to the Commission’s clarifications by no later than October 13, 1997. Those observations were never received. 30. By order of October 15, 1997, the President decided that the original text of the application submitted to the Court on July 22, 1997, was the version that the parties should consider valid, incorporating those corrections that the Commission had submitted on October 6, 1997. He also ordered that processing of the case was to continue and that the time period for answering the application was to resume. The new deadline would be December 27 of that year. 31. On November 21, 1997, the Commission submitted its written comments on the State’s preliminary objections and requested that the Court dismiss them. 32. On December 12, 1997, the State requested an extension of the deadline it was given to submit its answer to the application, and that the new deadline be January 5, 1998. On instructions from the President, on December 15, 1997, the Secretariat informed the State that the time period to file the answer to the application cannot be extended. Nevertheless, the Court will be closed as of noon on December 24 of the present year and will reopen on January 5, 1998, for which reason the Illustrious State of Peru may take until that date to file its answer. 33. On January 5, 1998, the State presented its response to the application and there asked the Court to declare the application unfounded in all its parts. It denied the alleged violations imputed to it. In its response to the application, the State made reference to the terrorist violence that had disrupted life in Peru since it first appeared in 1980 with the so- called Sendero Luminoso, and then continued with the MRTA, the group to which, the State alleged, the four Chilean citizens belonged. 34. On January 19, 1998, the State “challenged” a document annexed to the Commission’s observations on the State’s preliminary objections, which document had certified FASIC’s legal capacity; in the State’s communication, the organization is referred to as the Fundación de Ayuda Social de Fieles de las Iglesias Cristianas.