Crime of Genocide, as sought by the petitioners. Colombia maintains that Article 22 of the American Convention, “Freedom of Movement and Residence,” establishes a right that does not, in and of itself, assign competence and is not a rule of interpretation; and “consequently, it cannot be associated with rights enshrined in other international instruments, in order to extend the competence of the Commission to assign state responsibility under such instruments.”12 27. Thirdly, the State claims that the petition is inadmissible since the Commission may not rule on matters already decided at domestic venues when rights protected by the Convention are not affected, since in such an instance “it would become a trial court.”13 It holds that in the case at hand, “the Commission may not admit the petition in order to review the preclusion” ordered in single-instance criminal trial No. 5767 regarding the actions of Brigadier General Rito Alejo del Río Rojas, serving as the commanding officer of Army Brigade XVII during 1996 and 1997. 28. The State acknowledges that “some reports indicate that the officer might have offered assistance to the ‘paramilitaries,’ either by knowingly and voluntarily failing to take the steps necessary to address the problem, or by providing them with the wherewithal to act freely and establish groups of that kind.”14 In response, on July 21, 2002, an investigation of that officer began; he was crossexamined; and, when his legal situation was defined, the preclusion of the investigation was ordered. The State holds that the preclusion order that led to the conclusion of the investigation into the former commander of the XVII Brigade represented the exhaustion, by the State itself, of the internal remedy arising from the accusations and charges of conspiracy, embezzlement of official property, perverting the course of justice by omission, and crimes incurred through the failure to perform the duty of guarantor during 1996 and 1997. Colombia’s position is that the petitioners’ dissatisfaction with the results of the investigation does not empower them to pursue the review by the Commission of the resolution of preclusion and filing away adopted by the Prosecutor General of the Nation (FGN) in office at that time, Camilo Osorio. 29. To support this stance, the State cites the precedent of the reasoning used by the IACHR to establish the inadmissibility of two petitions that were expressly intended to secure the judicial review of judgments handed down by two different national supreme courts in laborrelated matters15 and insists that those precedents “apply perfectly to the instant case, since the complaint is aimed at challenging the legality of the rulings (sic) handed down by the Office of the Prosecutor General [...] as if the [...] Commission were an appeals court.”16 30. Fourthly, the State claims that the petition fails to meet both the condition requiring the prior exhaustion of domestic remedies contained in Article 46.1.a and the conditions for applying the exception thereto provided for in Article 46.2.c. It maintains that as long as the criminal investigation of the incident described in the petition is still pending final judgment, its admission must be deferred until the State has discharged the measures for resolving the situation over which it has competence. The table below, drawn up by the IACHR, summarizes the information furnished by the State17 in connection with those proceedings, and it also includes details on two disciplinary investigations supposedly relating to the involvement of state agents in the events described in the petition. 12 Note DDH. GOI/18083/0836 from the Directorate of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law at the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, dated April 18, 2006, pp. 6-9. 13 Note DDH. GOI/18083/0836 from the Directorate of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law at the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, dated April 18, 2006, p. 10. 14 Note DDH. GOI/18083/0836 of the Directorate of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law provides a verbatim quotation from the resolution of May 29, 2003, in Single-Instance Case No. 5767. 15 The State cites paragraph 33 of Inadmissibility Report No. 86/03, published in the 2003 Annual Report of the IACHR, and paragraph 9 of Inadmissibility Report No. 122/01, published in the 2001 Annual Report of the IACHR. Note DDH. GOI/18083/0836 from the Directorate of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law at the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, dated April 18, 2006, pp. 12-14. 16 Note DDH. GOI/18083/0836 from the Directorate of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law at the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, dated April 18, 2006, p. 14. 17 Note DDH. GOI/18083/0836 from the Directorate of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law at the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, dated April 18, 2006, pp. 26-33. 6