14 its Judgment on the merits on August 18, 2000 and its Judgment on reparations on December 3, 2001. Consequently, the statute of limitations for prosecution of the crimes committed against the victim is suspended as of the date on which the petition was filed with the Commission. 20. The State argued that the November 7, 2003 decision of the Office of the Third Criminal Prosecutor of Lima, mentioned previously, was based on the laws then in force; it reasoned that the physical and mental mistreatment to which Luis Alberto Cantoral Benavides was subjected in 1993 did not, under Peru’s domestic legal system, qualify as torture, since it was not until 1998 that torture was “introduced into Peru’s Criminal Code as a crime against humanity.” The State argued that this law does not, therefore, apply to the facts of this case, as it was enacted subsequent to the 1993 events. The State went on to argue that the 1968 Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity entered into force in Peru on November 9, 2003, so that it could not be applied to events that occurred prior to that date (supra Having Seen 8.a). 21. Should the Court deliver a judgment of conviction against a State, as happened in the cas d'espece, it is obvious that the possibility of that judgment’s compliance must be preserved, under the terms of the obligations undertaken by the State on becoming Party to the American Convention. Under Article 2 of the American Convention, the duty to fully observe the Court’s judgments carries with it the obligation to remove whatever obstacles there may be internally to fulfillment of this international obligation. Therefore, it is unacceptable that the criminal investigation into the facts of the present case was closed because torture was not classified as a crime in Peru’s domestic laws, since the same acts could have been prosecuted and punished under other criminal laws on the books in Peru at the time the events in the case occurred. Those responsible for the violations committed against Luis Alberto Cantoral Benavides have to be identified, prosecuted and punished, so that these acts do not go unpunished. 22. Given the foregoing, and as this Court held in its Order of November 27, 2003 (supra Having Seen 5(12)), the Court considers that the State may not invoke the statute of limitations in its domestic law to avoid compliance the obligation established in the 12th and 9th operative paragraphs of the judgments of August 18, 2000, and December 3, 2001, respectively. THEREFORE: THE INTER-AMERICAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS, in exercise of its authority to monitor compliance with its decisions and in accordance with Articles 33, 62(1), 62(3), 65 and 68(1) of the American Convention on Human Rights, Articles 25(1) and 30 of its Statute, and Article 29(2) of its Rules of Procedure, DECLARES: 1. That the State has fully complied with the following obligations imposed under operative paragraphs one, two, three, four, five and seven of the Judgment on reparations issued in the present case on December 3, 2001: