20. The State, in its response to the petition dated September 20, 2006, stated that it did not violate the rights alleged by the petitioners as regards the purported victims Maria Claudia Gelman, María Macarena Gelman and Juan Gelman. The State pointed out from the time that President Tabaré Vásquez assumed office a vast and intense process of investigation has been undertaken in relation to this case. The State indicated that it was actively investigating the disappearance of Maria Claudia Gelman and that eight officers (6 military and 2 police) were charged with participating in the operations of the so-called “Plan Condor”, of which the disappearance of Maria Claudia Gelman was one prominent victim. As noted above, the State did not specifically argue failure to exhaust domestic remedies, but in effect, the elements of its response were tantamount to an assertion that domestic remedies were still in the process of being exhausted. 21. The investigation, according to the State, began with the search by the grandfather of Maria Macarena, the Argentine poet, Juan Gelman. He received active support and assistance from the Commission for Peace, created in April 2003 in Uruguay, for the purpose of determining the situation of the detained-disappeared during the military dictatorship (19731985). The Commission was created to collect information in a confidential and voluntary manner and in which the organization of Mothers and Relatives of the Disappeared (Madres y Familiares de Desaparecidos) played a fundamental role. Facts relating to the detention of Maria Claudia Gelman, her transfer to a detention center in Uruguay while pregnant, the birth and the removal of her daughter and her subsequent killing were facts confirmed by the Commission for Peace. 22. María Macarena Gelman was located in February 2000. Juan Gelman sought the intermediation of the Bishop of San José, Monsignor Pablo Galimberti, who contacted Mrs. Tauriño and explained the situation to her. On March 31, 2000, Mr. Gelman and his wife met with Maria Macarena privately in Montevideo. Maria Macarena agreed to a DNA test and her identity was restored several months later. The State has been seeking to clarify the facts and to locate the remains of her disappeared mother, as well as the circumstances of her kidnapping and the expropriation of her child. The seriousness of this investigation and the determination to find the truth about these facts, according to the State, are undertakings that this Government considers imperative. 23. The State informed the Commission that Dr. Gonzalo Fernández, the Assistant of the President, assumed the legal representation of the grandparents and served as their advisor. Accordingly, Maria Macarena was able to get a Court judgment that restituted her true identity which was duly registered in the Civil Registry (Registro de Estado Civil). 24. On March 1, 2005, when President Tabaré Vásquez assumed office, in his inaugural speech, he declared that the Gelman case was excluded from the scope of Law 15.848, the Amnesty Law. The State further explained that this meant that the Gelman case could not seek protection from the law that exonerated members of the military and police from criminal prosecution for crimes that were committed during the military regime for political reasons, in compliance with their functions or by reason of superior orders. At the same time, the State noted that the President announced the decision to immediately begin an investigation for the purpose of exhausting the search of the detained-disappeared citizens, within which context the localization of the remains of Maria Claudia Gelman constituted a central aspect. 25. In this context, the State explained, the new Government understood that the Amnesty Law was in effect and that it was required to comply with the morally transcendent legal obligation contained in Article 4 of the Law, on which the reconciliation of all Uruguayans depended. This article, ignored by previous governmental administrations mandated the Executive Branch to facilitate investigations designed to clarify the facts relating to “acts regarding persons allegedly detained and disappeared in military or police operations in addition to the facts regarding minors who had presumably been kidnapped under similar conditions”. 26. The responsibility for carrying out the investigations, the State explained, had been in the hands of the Commission for Peace –without the power to investigate— and it passed directly 6