38
179.
The IACHR has established that the acts of violence against Gladys Carol Espinoza were
perpetrated deliberately, with the aim of humiliating her, reducing her physical and mental resistance, and
obtaining information on her alleged involvement in illicit activities. It has also been established that the
perpetrators of those acts inflicted intense suffering on the victim, who subsequently developed a range of
physical and mental aftereffects. In addition, the continuous acts of violence at the premises of the
DIVISE and the DINCOTE caused her to suffer from suffocation, fainting, convulsions, loss of
consciousness, an inability to feel pain, temporal and spatial disorientation, and such anxiety that she
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begged her assailants to kill her. Those elements are enough to conclude that the acts perpetrated by
agents of the DIVISE and the DINCOTE between April and May 1993 constitute torture in the terms of
Article 5.2 of the American Convention and the article of the IACPPT.
180.
In connection with the incommunicado detention in which Gladys Carol Espinoza was
held for several days while in police custody in accordance with the terms of Article 12.d of Decree Law
No. 25475, in force at the time, the Inter-American Court has ruled that “prolonged isolation and
compulsory incommunicado are, in themselves, cruel and inhuman treatment, which harm the physical
and moral integrity of the individual and the right to respect for the inherent dignity of the human
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person.”
181.
As will be seen below, in spite of complaints regarding the ongoing torture of Gladys
Carol Espinoza lodged by the victim’s next-of-kin and the APRODEH organization on April 26 and 28,
1993, respectively, the Peruvian State ordered no criminal investigation to cast light on the facts and
punish those responsible.
182.
On account of all the foregoing, the Peruvian State failed to uphold, with respect to
Gladys Carol Espinoza Gonzales, the obligations of respecting and ensuring the rights enshrined in
Articles 5.1 and 5.2 of the American Convention, in conjunction with Article 1.1 thereof, and it also
violated the provisions of Articles 1 and 6 of the IACPPT.
Detention conditions and acts of violence at Yanamayo Prison
183.
As has been established, Gladys Carol Espinoza served part of her sentence for the
crime of treason against the fatherland while the terms of Article 20 of Decree Law No. 25475 and Article
3 of Decree Law No. 25744 were still in effect. Those provisions ordered continuous solitary confinement
during the first year of detention, a permanent maximum-security regime throughout the prison term,
access to the open air for a period of thirty minutes a day, and a series of restrictions on visits. Far from
complying with the goal of social readaptation set for imprisonment by Article 5.6 of the Convention, that
regime, in conjunction with the general detention conditions, violated the human dignity of persons
serving sentences for terrorism or treason against the fatherland. On this point, the Inter-American Court
has ruled that the penal regime established by Decree Laws Nos. 25475 and 25744 constituted cruel,
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inhuman, and degrading treatment.
184.
It has been established that not only was the regime provided for in those decree laws
applied with respect to Gladys Carol Espinoza, but that she also was subjected to severe detention
conditions at Yanamayo Prison, in an inhospitable and excessively cold room, with limited access to
natural light, and without either adequate food or appropriate medical attention. The IACHR has further
established that on August 5, 1999, agents of the Peruvian National Police’s National Special Operations
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Annex 18: Medical Examiner’s Certificate No. 003821-V, issued by the Legal Medicine Institute after examining Gladys
Carol Espinoza on January 27 and February 9, 2004, pp. 2 to 5.
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I/A Court H. R., Case of Lori Berenson Mejía, Judgment of November 25, 2004, Series C No. 119, para. 103, citing:
Case of Maritza Urrutia, Judgment of November 27, 2003, Series C No. 103, para. 87; Bámaca Velásquez Case, Reparations and
Costs, Judgment of February 22, 2002, Series C No. 91, para. 150; and Cantoral Benavides Case, Judgment of August 18, 2000,
Series C No. 69, para. 83.
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I/A Court H. R., Case of García Asto and Ramírez Rojas, Judgment of November 25, 2005, Series C No. 137, paras.
229 and 233; and Case of Lori Berenson Mejía, Judgment of November 25, 2004, Series C No. 119, para. 108.