members of the federal police agent indicted, owing to their intervention in the investigations into the execution of Assistant Commissioner Gutiérrez (supra paras. 56, 57, 65 and 83 to 86), and this frightened them and made them anxious, without any evidence that the State adopted safety measures for them when it became aware of these incidents. Moreover, Commissioner Piazza, who was in charge of the investigation from the start and whose testimony had been requested by the injured party before Transitional Court No. 2, was murdered (supra paras. 65 and 116). Also, the Court notes that, in this case, attempts at bribery and the theft of evidence were reported without any evidence that these facts were investigated (supra paras. 104 and 113.b). All these facts have constituted obstructions to the proceedings, affecting the identification, prosecution, and punishment of those responsible for the execution of Assistant Commissioner Jorge Omar Gutiérrez. Thus, the Court notes that the exculpatory evidence provided by people who later disavowed this was taken into account in order to acquit the federal police agent indicted for this act, and the testimony of the male eyewitness was rejected owing to assertions he made under threat (supra para. 48). 122. In addition, the Court notes that the judge of the proceeding, in the decision of April 2000 to archive the case file, and in the decisions of December 2006 and December 2009 by which the proceedings and the presumed participant in the execution of Jorge Omar Gutiérrez, respectively, were dismissed provisionally, did not include any considerations regarding the relationship between this extrajudicial execution and the investigation of the Special Investigative Commission of the Chamber of Deputies of Congress into a series of cases of corruption, smuggling, fraud, drug-trafficking and unlawful association of public officials known as the “case of the parallel customs house,” or regarding the threats revealed throughout the proceedings, but rather treated the case of Mr. Gutiérrez as completely separate from those events, which did not help determine the truth or the corresponding responsibilities. 123. The Court also considers that, in this case, the denial of the requests of the judge of the proceeding for judicial investigators owing to their “unavailability” results in a failure of the judicial authorities of the province of Buenos Aires to comply with their duty to ensure that the investigations conducted by their assistants in the Police of the province of Buenos Aires would not be affected by possible obstructions by agents of this entity. B.3. Reasonable time 124. This Court has indicated that the right of access to justice is not complied with by the processing of domestic proceedings, but must also ensure, within a reasonable time, the right of the presumed victims or their next of kin that everything necessary is done to discover the truth of what happened, and that those eventually found responsible are punished. 239 125. As Argentina has acknowledged, even though more than 19 years have passed, the facts of the case have still not been clarified and the truth of what happened has not been determined, and this has affected the right of access to justice within a reasonable time of the next of kin of Mr. Gutiérrez. The Court does not find it necessary to include further considerations in this regard. B.4. Consequences of the deficiencies in the investigation of the facts 239 Cf. Case of Palamara Iribarne v. Chile. Merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of November 22, 2005. Series C No. 135, para. 188 and Case of García Lucero et al., supra, para. 121. 47