personnel patrolling the area in the same vehicle in which the victims were put after their unlawful detention.273 223. Second, the eye witnesses are consistent in their statements that the detentions were carried out by persons who for various reasons: dress, weapons, and language, they identified as being army personnel. One of the statements even indicates that an army member told him that the detention was part of the Joint Chihuahua Operation. 224. Third, the Commission notes that several family members stated, at the time they filed their reports and undertook initial searches that some State authorities had told them that José Ángel Alvarado Herrera, Nitza Paola Alvarado Espinoza, and Rocío Irene Alvarado Reyes were in the 35th Infantry Battalion. María de Jesús Alvarado indicated that a staff member of the Public Ministry of Buenaventura and PGR staff had given her that information. Likewise, Jaime Alvarado Reyes said that personnel of the Ministerial Police of Nuevo Casas Grandes told him that his relatives were in that battalion. 225. Fourth, the Commission also has statements from various public officials indicating that they knew or had received information that the alleged victims were being held in the 35th Infantry Battalion, or the “military garrison,” or that they would be turned over to State entities by army personnel. 226. Specifically, Sergeant-Driver Alberto Hernández stated that he was aware that “a disabled woman and a man” had been taken away in the “village” of Benito Juárez, a detail that coincides with the fact that Nitza Paola Alvarado Espinoza was disabled on her left side. That same person said that when he was driving Colonel Elfego Luján Ruiz, the senior commander of the 35th Battalion, approximately 15 days before the disappearance, he heard the Colonel say that he had received a telephone call in which he was asked whether he had thrown out “the garbage” he had been ordered to throw out. 227. In addition, a Deputy Delegate for Criminal Proceedings stated on two occasions that she had received a phone call from an officer of the Federal Public Ministry in Nuevo Casas Grandes telling her that, for his part, he had received a call from an attorney asking about the three detainees and indicating that they were going to be “made available” and that once that occurred they should be turned over to a federal policeman, “Commander Meza,” who was investigating the disappearance of federal police officers. This situation was corroborated by the statement of the Public Ministry officer himself, who added that “Commander Meza” had gone to see him on December 30, 2009, at night and had expressly inquired about José Ángel Alvarado Herrera, Nitza Paola Alvarado Espinoza, and Rocío Irene Alvarado Reyes. The Public Ministry officer told him that no one was being held. 228. Fifth, the General Prosecution Service of the State of Chihuahua, the Federal Public Ministry, and FEVIMTRA considered that there was sufficient evidence that the disappearances were carried out by army personnel. For its part, the CNDH, in its recommendations on the facts of the instant case, considered that, given the body of evidence, it was possible to attribute the arbitrary detention and forced disappearance of the victims to personnel of the Secretariat of National Defense and the Federal Police. In turn, the report of the team of international experts, which reviewed the case records and made recommendations, stated that as a result of its investigation it was able to establish the participation of members of the 35th Infantry Battalion in the victims’ disappearance. This team also indicated that there was evidence that made it possible to establish a link between this case and the investigations under way regarding the missing federal police officers, which is consistent with the telephone calls regarding the request made by “Commander Meza,” the very person investigating what happened to those police officers, for access to the three detainees. 229. In view of the foregoing, the Commission considers that there is sufficient evidence which, taken as a whole and added to the absence of any other duly grounded hypothesis, to conclude that Nitza Paola Alvarado Espinoza, José Ángel Alvarado Herrera, and Rocío Irene Alvarado Reyes were deprived of 273 Annex I. Case file. Volume XV. Witness statement given by Marisa Reyes Rueda to the CNDH on February 21, 2010, page 315 of the pdf. (Annex to the petitioners’ observations on the merits received on November 3, 2014).