16 42. On June 27 and 28, 2005, the Court held a public hearing to receive the statements by the witnesses and the reports by the expert witnesses proposed by the Inter-American Commission and by the representatives. The Tribunal will now summarize the relevant parts of said statements and expert reports. a) Witnesses proposed by the Inter-American Commission and the representatives 1. Alejandra Josefina Iriarte de Blanco, wife to Oscar José BlancoRomero On December 21, 1999, when “army officers” entered her home, located in Vargas State, she was in the company of her husband, Oscar José Blanco-Romero, her mother and her four children. The soldiers arrived at the house “firing their guns”, and they “smashed everything” in the house. She saw them arresting her husband and she concentrated on taking care of the children, who were agitated, crying and asking whether these men had shot their father dead. She is positive she saw Oscar José handcuffed and beaten. That night, she could not stay at home because everything had been destroyed. After her husband's disappearance, she was the subject of harassment by “an army intelligence unit”, intended to discourage her from searching for her husband. On December 23, 1999, she began to search for her husband. She and her motherin-law went to an army operations center, for she thought her husband was being held there. However, she did not find him on the records or lists of arrested persons. Some army officers told her that she should go to the office of the DISIP, for they turned arrested persons over to that agency. The witness indicated that she went to the DISIP operations center, but there she was not given any information whatsoever. The officer that she spoke to at the DISIP told her that she should go to Maiquetía airport, for there where some people held in custody there. The following day, she set out to the airport and walked for many hours. At one point, her feet failed her for walking so much, as the sand kept getting into her shoes. She walked by many rivers, where she saw a lot of dead people and animals. At the airport, they did not provide any information regarding her husband’s whereabouts and his arrest was not registered on any record or list. She could not get any information from DISIP headquarters, nor could she obtain any information on Oscar José at the auxiliary morgue located in the airport. After this search, she contacted the organization called COFAVIC (Comité de Familiares de Víctimas de los Sucesos de Febrero-Marzo de 1989) (Committee of Next of Kin of the Victims of the Events of February-March 1989), where she was called for an interview concerning the events, and where she received assistance to file several complaints. She filed for a remedy with the courts for Vargas State on January 28, 2000, which was dismissed as there was allegedly no subject-matter for the Court to determine. The witness has been searching for her husband for six years and none of the authorities or officials approached have provided any useful information leading to find him.