Bolivia should conduct certain specific actions, as a minimum. One of the measures would be to create an effective judicial investigation mechanism, since the investigations conducted to clarify the facts of the instant case have made no progress. They request the establishment of a Special Joint Investigative Committee, headed by the Human Rights Committee of the Chamber of Deputies and composed of representatives of the Permanent Human Rights Assembly and the Association of Next of Kin of DetainedDisappeared (ASOFAMD). The State should assign an adequate budget for the work of this Joint Committee. The obligation to investigate the facts and punish those responsible and the obligation to investigate the whereabouts of the disappeared person and return the body to his family have different specific purposes. The return of the mortal remains should not necessarily be linked to the progress of the judicial proceeding; b) effective investigation and punishment of the perpetrators of the facts and their accessories The State must investigate and apply the pertinent punishments to all those who made it possible, by act or omission, for impunity to prevail in crimes against human rights. Not only one, but several investigations have been interrupted at different stages of the domestic proceeding. The representatives of the victim and his next of kin presented a list of persons who the State should ask to submit a statement. They advised that on March 27, 2000, the Fifth Criminal Trial Court of Santa Cruz drew up a criminal indictment for the crimes of deprivation of freedom, ill-treatment and tortures against Juan Antonio Elio, Deputy-Secretary of the Interior at the time of the facts, Elias Moreno Caballero, Justo Sarmiento Alanés and Percy González Monasterios, agents of the Political Control Department and the El Pari prison, for what occurred to José Carlos Trujillo Oroza, and that on April 6, 2000, the victim’s next of kin filed suit against the said accused persons and requested the expansion of the initial indictment to include the crime of assassination and its expansion against Mario Adett Zamora, Minister of the Interior at the time of the facts, Ernesto Morant Lijerón and Oscar Menacho. In November 2000, the judge declared that the criminal suit had extinguished; this judgment has been appealed in various judicial instances, which have confirmed the decision. They requested the Court to indicate to the State that the crime of forced disappearance of persons has no statute of limitations and that the State must remove the impediment of the extinguishment in order to end impunity in the instant case; c) legislative reforms The State should complete the reform of the Criminal Code in order to define the forced disappearance of persons as an offense, in accordance with provisions in the international treaties that Bolivia has ratified. In the criminal proceeding investigating what happened to José Carlos Trujillo Oroza, inappropriate criminal offenses have been cited that have hindered progress in establishing criminal responsibility. The draft law has been before Congress since September 4, 1998, and a national law has still not been enacted. The establishment of the offense of forced disappearance of persons

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