36 gun, were not carried out. Since the death of his daughter, Claudina’s father had repeatedly visited the Public Ministry, suggested lines of investigation and even carried out independent inquiries. Recognizing the deficiencies in the investigation of the case, in November 2005, the head of the Special Prosecutor’s Office on Crimes against Life took over the investigation. Since then investigations have effectively restarted including sending blood samples of the five suspects to Spain for DNA analysis. While the reactivation of investigations is a positive step, it is likely that critical evidence has been lost. 142. Several of these irregularities were mentioned by Alvaro Rodrigo Castellanos Howell, an expert witness, to the IACHR.161 The expert’s report also mentioned “the situation where, when the doctor got some of the victim’s blood on himself, he cleaned it off with the victim’s sweater and in fact cleaned part of the wound in order to record the information he needed.”162 This fact was also documented in the medico-legal expert’s report submitted by the petitioners, based on a review of several documents connected with the case file, including a video of the crime scene in which this fact can be seen.163 The expert’s report states the following: One can also see in the video that twice when the medical examiner at the crime scene got blood on his forearm he wiped it off with the decedent’s sweater. He did the same to clean the hair at the back of the alleged victim’s head in order to better see the exit wound in the right occipital region. The only thing that this achieved was the cross-contamination of that evidence, a practice 164 prohibited by the crime-scene processing protocol. 143. In the visit that the Rapporteur on the Rights of Women made to Guatemala in 2004, officers of the court told her that in many instances, cases do not get beyond the investigation phase because of a lack of evidence; in those cases that do go to trial, the lack of physical or scientific evidence to corroborate the testimony jeopardizes the proceedings’ reliability. The Rapporteur was also told that the vast majority of the cases reported do not get beyond the investigative phase. By way of example, the IACHR observed that of the murder cases processed by the Office of the Public Prosecutor for Women, by September 2004 only one had gone to trial. 144. The IACHR observed the same pattern in its 2003 report, where it wrote that the information it had received indicated that in violent crimes, including rape, several essentials were missing: technical expertise, determination in compiling evidence, and follow-through to prosecution and punishment on the part of the authorities, prosecutors’ failings and mistakes, which make the work of judges that much more difficult, cause delays in the administration of justice, and can even result in crimes going unpunished.165 161 Record of Hearing No 30. Case 12.777, Claudina Isabel Velásquez Paiz, March 27, 2012. 162 Record of Hearing No 30. Case 12.777, Claudina Isabel Velásquez Paiz, March 27, 2012. 163 Appendix 33. Medico-legal expert’s report on the homicide of Claudina Isabel Velásquez Paiz, issued on December 10, 2009. Document submitted by the petitioners with their communication of March 19, 2010. 164 Appendix 33. Medico-legal expert’s report on the homicide of Claudina Isabel Velásquez Paiz, issued on December 10, 2009. Document submitted by the petitioners with their communication of March 19, 2010. 165 IACHR, Justice and Social Inclusion: IACHR, Justice and Social Inclusion: The Challenges of Democracy in Guatemala, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.118, December 29, 2003, par. 302. In 2003, the IACHR reported that of the 8,989 complaints that the Office of the Public Prosecutor for Women had received by late 2001, only three resulted in convictions.