REPORT Nº 79/01 CASE 12.101 MARCO ANTONIO MOLINA THEISSEN GUATEMALA October 10, 20011 I. SUMMARY 1. On September 8, 1998, the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) and the Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo (GAM) (hereinafter “the petitioners”) submitted a petition to the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights (hereinafter “the Commission,” “the Inter-American Commission,” or “the IACHR”) denouncing the forced disappearance of Marco Antonio Molina Theissen (hereinafter “the alleged victim”), a 14-year-old child who was allegedly abducted from his parents’ home by members of the armed forces of the Republic of Guatemala (hereinafter “the State” or “the Guatemalan State”) on October 6, 1981. 2. The petitioners allege that the following rights enshrined in the American Convention on Human Rights (hereinafter “the Convention” or “the American Convention”) were violated: the right to life (Article 4), the right to humane treatment (Article 5), the right to personal liberty (Article 7), the rights of the child (Article 19), the right to a fair trial (Article 8), and the right to judicial protection (Article 25), all this in conjunction with the State’s duty of respecting and ensuring the cited rights set forth in Article 1(1). They also claim that the right to juridical personality, protected by Article 3 of the American Convention, was violated. With respect to the admissibility of this case, the petitioners claim to have filed five habeas corpus remedies and two special investigation procedures. 3. The State provided information about the latter investigation procedure, but it did not expressly raise the matter of due exhaustion of domestic remedies. 4. After analyzing the parties’ arguments and their compliance with the admissibility requirements set forth in the Convention, the Commission has decided to declare the petition admissible. II. PROCESSING BY THE COMMISSION 5. The complaint was submitted to the IACHR on September 8, 1998, and its appendices on September 14 of that same year. The relevant parts of those communications were forwarded to the State on February 2, 1999. 6. On April 26, 1999, the State provided some preliminary information and requested a 60-day extension for presenting a more complete reply. On May 6, 1999, the Commission forwarded the State’s report to the petitioners and granted them a period of 30 days within which they were requested to present their comments. 7. On June 17, 1999, within an extension granted by the Commission the petitioners submitted their observation on the State’s reply. On July 2 the State supplied information. On July 16 the petitioners’ comments were forwarded to the State. On August 19, the State sent information again. On August 23, the petitioners submitted what they claimed were their final comments. 1 Commissioner Marta Altolaguirre, a Guatemalan national, did not participate in discussing and deciding on this case in accordance with Article 17(2)(a) of the Commission’s new Rules of Procedure, which came into force on May 1, 2001. 1