hearing before the Commission to discuss the admissibility of the petition. On February 13, 2002, the Commission informed the petitioners that it would be unable to grant their request. 13. On February 15, 2002, the petitioners’ observations were received. Due to an involuntary filing error, they were transmitted to the State on July 26, 2002, with any observations in response requested in one month. During a working visit carried out by the Commission’s Rapporteur for Argentina from July 29 through August 6, 2002 to address a number of friendly settlement processes and other matters, the Commission’s delegation met with the family of Deputy-Captain Gutiérrez. 14. By notes of August 28 and September 9, 2002, the State submitted further observations, which, in turn, were transmitted to the petitioners on October 10, 2002, with any observations in response requested within one month. By note of November 27, 2002, the petitioners filed an additional response reiterating previously expressed positions. This was transmitted to the State for its information by note of January 23, 2003. III. POSITION OF THE PARTIES A. The Petitioners 15. The petitioners relate that, the night he was killed, Deputy-Captain Gutiérrez worked his shift at the Second Precinct in Avellaneda. He took the General Roca Train (Constitución to La Plata line) to return to his home in Quilmes, where he lived with his wife and three children. His body was found on that same train by an off-duty guard shortly after midnight, the morning of August 29, 1994. He had been wearing his uniform, and with him were found his 9 mm. service pistol, shield, briefcase, ring and gold watch. 16. The judicial investigation was conducted by the Fifth Criminal and Correctional Court of the City of La Plata. The petitioners allege that it was deficient from the start, indicating, for example, that investigators failed to note or attribute importance to certain evidence. They note that, while the initial theory pursued was that the victim had been killed by a stray bullet fired from outside the train, it was clear to anyone who examined the position of the body and the entry and exit wounds that he had been killed by a shot fired at close range from behind. The bullet was allegedly fired from a distance of less that 50 cm., entered at the base of the neck and exited near the forehead–what the petitioners call a “death shot” (“tiro de la muerte”), premeditated and intended to kill. The petitioners note that other similarly unfounded theories were propounded in the effort to obscure the truth. 17. The petitioners report that two witnesses to the killing were later found. The first, Gabriel Ramón (“David”) Silva, was located not by the police but by the family of the victim. In his statement to the authorities, he indicated that the killers had been two members of the Argentine Federal Police, nicknamed “Chiquito” and “Colorado.” He said the two were seen on the trains every Friday at a certain hour, requiring roving vendors such as himself to pay a ten-peso bribe. He indicated that those who didn’t pay had their merchandise confiscated and were detained for 24 hours. He said it was Chiquito–whom he subsequently identified as Alejandro Daniel Santillán, a member of the Federal Police--who had shot Gutiérrez. Silva partially retracted his statement during the trial, but later testified before the Special Investigative Commission of the National Chamber of Deputies that the retraction had been prepared with Santillan’s lawyers after having been imprisoned for three days in the Roca Division of the Headquarters of Railway Security of the Argentine Federal Police (hereinafter “SSF-PFA”), where he was tortured by two agents of the SSF-PFA. 18. The petitioners report that the other witness, Alejandra Chumbita, reported similar descriptions, including that the two men warned her after the shooting not to say anything. One 3