5 when, according to the former Minister of Defense, Ítalo del Valle Alliegro, there were illegal armed groups in Venezuela. In his words, this plan “was executed, despite the length of time [that had elapsed] without implementing it”; however, “it had to be revised and updated in view of the new circumstances”; k. two non-governmental organizations that carried out investigations in situ, as well as international experts, agreed that most of the deaths were due to indiscriminate firing by agents of the Venezuelan State, while others resulted from extrajudicial executions. They also agreed that the members of the armed forces opened fire against crowds and against homes, which caused the death of many children and innocent people who were not taking part in criminal acts; l. the victims included seven children and five women. Of the 44 cases, 18 occurred on March 1, 1989, or later although the events had ceased as of February 28 that year when, according to Venezuelan Government reports, the situation was completely controlled; 11 victims were killed in their homes, five of these during curfew hours, and the other seven cases were typical of extrajudicial executions. Regarding the circumstances of death, 14 of the victims died as a result of head injuries caused by firearms, three of them received bullets in the neck, 14 in the thorax or abdomen, and five were shot in the back. Another four victims disappeared in the area controlled by the Army and the Metropolitan Police and, to date, there has been no information on their whereabouts. Furthermore, 32 of these cases were pending before military tribunals or were heard by military tribunals (although some of them also being processed under civil jurisdiction) and in none of the cases has there been a judgment that identifies those responsible and establishes the corresponding penalties. m. in the cases that are the subject of this application, there was a common pattern of behavior characterized by the disproportionate use of the armed forces in the poorer residential districts. This behavior included hiding and destroying evidence as well as the use of institutional mechanisms that have ensured the impunity of the acts; n. in the days following the events, the State, through the Executive, ordered that an undetermined number of corpses should be buried in mass graves in the sector known as “La Peste I and II of the Southern General Cemetery of Caracas in order to ‘comply with specific health-related instructions’”; o. at the time the application was presented - nine years after the exhumations were carried out - investigations remain at the summary proceedings stage which was secret; “this means that, ten years after the events occurred, the victims’ next of kin have not been able to gain access to the file papers or ascertain whether the tribunal hearing the case has issued an interlocutory order”. When the victims’ next of kin were informed of the burial, they immediately approached the competent national authorities in order to seek and claim the corpses. At first, state officials publicly denied the existence of mass graves, but the victims’ next of kin presented a series of proofs to the Venezuelan domestic jurisdictional bodies that established the existence of mass graves in the Southern General Cemetery.