40 domestic tribunals, has been to receive the statements and reports, leaving their final evaluation for the appropriate procedural phase. 75. In relation to the newspaper articles, they do not have the status of documentary evidence. However, they are important in that they are the expression of public and well-known facts, and they corroborate the testimony received in the case with regard to the circumstances of the victims’ arrests and murders. 76. In conclusion, any domestic or international tribunal must be aware that proper evaluation of evidence according to the rule of "sound criticism" will allow judges to arrive at a decision as to the truth of the alleged acts. * * * 77. The report of the Guatemalan National Police and the previous police investigative reports, which contain data, interrogations and a number of statements produce probative elements which, in the Court’s view, are important as a basis for this Judgment. 78. The declaration made by the investigators of the National Police of Guatemala on the responsibility of the six Treasury Police agents for the acts denounced must be considered by the Court, bearing in mind that those agents and others were subsequently identified by eyewitnesses of the aforesaid kidnappings and by the very victims who were mistreated. 79. This National Police report, having being acknowledged and ratified before this Court by the persons responsible for it (supra, para. 67 (h) and (p)), has the status of evidence in that its investigations and conclusions corroborate the evidence delivered before this Tribunal. 80. The merit of this investigation was not disputed by the State; on the contrary, the Agent referred to it in the following terms in his closing arguments: a police investigation conducted by a State investigation body, which warrants the respect of the State […] the State has conducted […] an outstanding police investigation, described as such by the [C]ommission and by experts. 81. The Court grants circumstantial status to the numerous previous police reports used as a basis for the final report. These reports contain interrogations, declarations, descriptions of places and facts, legal practices such as those relating to the removal of the victims’ corpses and other information. These previous police reports are useful in the instant Case because, by the rules of sound criticism, they help form an opinion on the facts; all the more so in these situations of kidnappings and violent death, in which attempts are made to erase any trace that would betray their perpetrators. 82. Analysis of the witnesses’ statements made to this Court or to the Guatemalan Police, shows that those who took part in the arbitrary arrests did not always wear uniforms that would identify them as State agents. The murdered victims’ captors wore "civilian clothes" and even sportswear, as in the case of Ms. Paniagua-Morales. Some of the captors of those who were taken to the Treasury Police premises wore uniforms, while others wore civilian clothes, as attested to by Mr. Vásquez, Mr. Montenegro, Mr. Montes-Letona et al., but they were always armed.