75 Belisario Hernández González in the custody of the court. In the case of the armed forces, for a year they did not answer the request, which was reiterated on June 23, 1999, and since no answer was forthcoming the case was shelved until November 20, 2001. According to the accused, in his statement before the Second Court of First Instance of Intibucá, he was discharged from the armed forces on January 28, 1997 and he learned that he was being investigated through the publication of rewards for his capture in the daily newspapers in March 2002. This type of suspensions should only be allowed for extremely grave causes,148 but not, as in the sub judice case, due to not being able to locate the person allegedly responsible for the facts, as the investigation should have been directed toward establishing the responsibility of the other participants in the detention, torture, and extralegal execution of Juan Humberto Sánchez (supra 70.30); and b) no investigation was carried out regarding any other agent of the State, but rather only regarding the person against whom the first arrest warrant had been issued. even though he had been investigated and acquitted in the internal jurisdiction of the armed forces. Likewise, due to the detention, the conditions of the body and the prevailing pattern in the country, it is reasonable to assume that several agents were involved in violation of the rights of Juan Humberto Sánchez. 132. With respect to the behavior of the interested party, as the Court previously pointed out regarding the phenomenon of extra-legal executions, the State’s answer to the application cannot rest on the judicial activity of the next of kin of the alleged victim, as the Supreme Court of Justice stated in 1997 when it affirmed that “respecting the independence of the lower [c]ourts, it issue[d] no ruling with respect to the case being discussed. Furthermore, the parties have access to the remedies set forth in the law, to correct any irregularities that they deem [are] shown in the aforementioned files.” In this type of situations, it is the obligation of the State to conduct a serious and effective investigation, which in this case would involve the elucidation of what happened to Juan Humberto Sánchez. Nevertheless, this Court notes that the next of kin of the alleged victim rendered statements at various times in the proceedings, in 1992, 1993, 1995 and 1998, because they were annulled by the Second Court of First Instance of Intibucá for lack of some legal requirement when they were taken by the Justice of the Peace of Colomoncagua, and they did so despite the fact that they were being threatened by the military authorities to discontinue their investigations (supra 70.13 and 70.14). In any case, regarding extra-legal executions the authorities must act on their own motion and further their investigation, and the burden of the initiative must not lie on the next of kin,149 as the State affirmed in its allegations (supra 61.e and 116.c). 133. The preventive mechanisms established by the State must include effective procedures to investigate, seriously and in depth, the circumstances in which a violation of the right to life may have occurred.150 In this regard, Principle Four of the United Nations “Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra148 The European Court of Human Rights deemed in the Baraona case that suspension of proceedings in three different periods adding up to almost 2 years is unjustifiable, save in very exceptional circumstances. Eur. Court H.R., Baraona judgment of 8 July 1987, supra note 146, para. 54 in fine. Likewise, Eur. Court HR, Paccione v. Italy judgment of 27 April 1995, Series A no. 315-A, paras. 20-21. 149 Cf. Eur. Court H.R., Hugh Jordan, supra note 131, paras. 105 et seg. 150 Cf. Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 6 (Sixteenth session, 1982), para. 4, supra note 123.