33 79(42) On August 6, 1996 Mr. Manases Betancourth Núñez asked the Judge to issue an arrest warrant against Messrs. Lieutenant Colonel David Abraham Mendoza; the Captains Miguel Angel Villatoro Aguilar, Egberto Arias Aguilar, Rodolfo Pagoada Medina, and Juan Ramón Avila Meza; Lieutenants Marco Tulio Regalado [Hernández], José Francisco Valencia Velásquez, and Edilberto Brizuela Reyes; Second Lieutenants José Alberto Alfaro Martínez, Leonel Matute Chavez, Orlando Mejía Murcía, José Reinaldo Servellón Castillo, and Osvaldo López Flores; the agents Núñez, Palacios, Cano, Laínez, Hugo Antonio Vivas, and Francisco Morales Suazo, and the Police Judge Roxana Sierra Ramírez, since from the preliminary proceedings presented, the persons mentioned resulted involved in the commission of the crimes denounced, in detriment of the minor Rony Alexis Betancourth Vásquez, besides “having gathered on record enough evidence verified through Expert Opinions and Doctors and issued by the Office of Criminal Investigation and Forensic Medicine […] to produce sufficient evidence of their guilt.36” 79(43) On the same August 6, 1996 the Court denied the request for an arrest warrant since there were not enough grounds to issue a commitment order. The representatives of Mr. Manases Betancourth Núñez appealed said decision, and on January 21, 1997 the First Appeals Court denied the appeal presented and confirmed the decision appealed.37 79(44) From March 1996 to February 2005 both the Public Prosecutors’ Office and the legal authorities focused the preliminary proceedings mainly on five requests: a) inspect the installations of the Seventh Regional Command (CORE VII) in order to verify in the Registration Book of detainees the day and entry time and alleged exit of the victims; b) verify the complete name, assignment and degree of the accused in the sheet of police services for the month of September 1995, especially Marco Tulio Regalado Hernández; c) determine from the inventory of weapons if they were seized and not returned by the Police, the permits to carry weapons in force in that dependency and if the suspects possessed personal weapons assigned in 1995; d) request the expert reports that include the result of the bullets found in the victims’ bodies from the Ballistics Laboratory of the Public Prosecutors’ Office and e) seek the expansion of the testimony of Mrs. Liliana Ortega Alvarado. At the beginning of the year 2005, more than nine years after the facts occurred, the criminal process was still in its preliminary stages. 79(45) On May 16, 2002 the Supreme Court of Honduras requested ad efectum videndi that the Court forward the cause presented for the crime of murder in detriment of Marco Antonio Servellón García et al., in attention to the request of the 36 Cfr. complaint of the attorney Henriech Rommel Pineda Platteros, legal proxy of Mr. Manases Betancourt Núñez, presented before the First Criminal Court of First Instance, on August 6, 1995 (dossier of appendixes to the petition, appendix 4, volume I, folios 1210 and 1211). 37 Cfr. ruling issued by the First Criminal Court of First Instance, on August 6, 1996 (dossier of appendixes to the petition, appendix 4, volume I, folio 1212); complaint of the attorney Mercedes Suyapa Vasquez Coello presented before the First Criminal Court of First Instance requesting reconsideration and appeal in subsidy, of August 13, 1996 (dossier of appendixes to the petition, appendix 4, volume I, folios 1215 and 1216); and decision issued by the First Appellate Court, Tegucigalpa, Municipality of the Central District, of January 21, 1997 (dossier of appendixes to the petition, appendix 4, volume I, folios 1223 through 1226).