Bogotá. The operation was carried out in response to a complaint lodged with UNASE according to which Mr. Gutiérrez Soler participated in acts related to the crime of extortion.1 9. The petitioners’ account indicates that members of the UNASE took the detainee to the UNASE offices. It alleges that once there, the victim was interrogated by then-Commander of the UNASE, Col. Luis Gonzaga Enciso Barón, and by the private individual who lodged the complaint against him, Mr. Ricardo Dalel Barón. The petitioners allege that Mr. Gutiérrez Soler was urged to incriminate himself, accepting that he had engaged in the crime of extortion, and that when he refused to do so, Messrs. Enciso Barón and Dalel Barón stripped him and tortured him by introducing a blunt object into his anus and by inflicting burns on his penis. 10. The petitioners allege that Wilson Gutiérrez Soler signed a self-incriminating statement under duress and without the presence of an attorney, after having been tortured. This declaration was the basis for the special courts in existence at that time known as the Regional Justice jurisdiction to institute a proceeding against him for the crime of extortion and to a detention order that prevented his release. On January 20, 1995, the Delegate Prosecutor before the Superior Court (Fiscalía Delegada ante el Tribunal Superior) decided to revoke the detention order and to order Mr. Gutiérrez Soler’s release. On May 6, 1999, an indictment was issued against Wilson Gutiérrez Soler, and an arrest warrant was proffered, which was revoked after being appealed by the defense. According to the information provided by the petitioners, Mr. Gutiérrez Soler is now free, but is still under investigation in this proceeding. 11. On August 25, 1994, Mr. Gutiérrez Soler denounced to the delegate of the special prosecutorial unit known as the Fiscalía Regional, for UNASE (urban area), the torture he had suffered the day before.2 As a result of the complaint, parallel proceedings were initiated before the military criminal courts and the regular courts. The 51st Judge of Military Criminal Investigation instituted proceedings against Col. Luis Gonzaga Enciso Barón for the offense of injuries (lesiones) and the investigation was transferred to the military prosecutorial unit known as Auditoría Auxiliar de Guerra Nº 60, where it was decided to suspend all proceedings against the accused. This decision was affirmed by the military criminal court on September 30, 1998. For its part, the Office of the Attorney General initiated an investigation into Mr. Ricardo Dalel Barón. On January 15, 1999, the Personal Injuries Unit of the Office of the Attorney General, Prosecutor Nº 248, ruled to preclude the investigation into Mr. Ricardo Dalel Barón, and ordered that the case be archived. Later, the victim invoked the special constitutional remedy known as the acción de tutela before Criminal Court Nº 55 of the Bogotá circuit, which was rejected. On June 8, 1999, the Superior Court of the Judicial District of Bogotá affirmed the decision. In June 1999, the Constitutional Court ruled not to review the decision of the Superior Court, which made it a firm judgment. 12. In addition, according to petitioners’ account, a series of disciplinary proceedings were carried out in response to the complaint lodged by Mr. Gutiérrez Soler. Specifically, on February 27, 1995, the Director of the Judicial Police, Brigadier Hugo Rafael Martínez Poveda, exonerated Col. Luis Gonzaga Enciso Barón of all disciplinary liability. Nonetheless, on June 7, 1995, the Office of the Delegate Procurator for Human Rights (Procuraduría Delegada para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos) considered that there were sufficient grounds for drawing up a bill of charges against Col. Luis Gonzaga Enciso Barón. In response, the Office of the Procurator General (Procuraduría General de la Nación) decided to terminate the proceeding alleging that the prior absolution of Barón in the proceeding carried out by the Director of the Judicial Police barred the opening of a new proceeding by application of the principle of non bis in idem. 13. The petitioners allege that the State, through its agents, participated directly and allowed a private individual to inflict physical torture on Mr. Gutiérrez Soler while he was in the State’s custody, in order to extract a confession from him, in violation of the judicial guarantees that 1 On August 24, 1994, Mr. Ricardo Dalel Barón allegedly lodged a complaint with the Commander of UNASE, Col. Luis Gonzaga Enciso Barón, against Wilson Gutiérrez Soler, in which he accused Gutiérrez Soler of attempting to extort him. Petition submitted to the Commission on November 5, 1999. 2 The petition of November 5, 2001, includes as an annex copies of the medical certificate from the National Institute of Forensic Medicine (Instituto Nacional de Medicina Legal) of August 24, 1994, which describes the victim’s wounds and the degree to which he was incapacitated. 2