244. The Commission emphasizes that it is not the purpose of this case to delve into the possible effects that
may generate on the rights of those indicted for the accusations that are fundamentally based on intelligence
reports produced from classified sources, whose suitability or quality of the witnesses cannot be liable to be
controlled by the parties to a criminal proceeding. The Commission understands that, on certain occasions, it
may be essential for the success of the information gathering policies carried out by intelligence agencies that
the identity of the source supplying the information or the methods used to obtain it be protected. Likewise, it
is necessary to recognize that the rules relating to the secrecy of intelligence activities tend to pursue the
legitimate aim of preserving the personal integrity of the public officials who are engaged in them. However, in
any case it is necessary to adopt certain safeguards to respect due process guarantees242.
245. In what is relevant to the present case, the Commission considers that the intelligence reports could
serve as a guiding criterion for the investigating authority, even if they were built upon information obtained
by sources whose identity is unknown even by the judicial officials in charge of the investigation and from
which certain substantiated conclusions can be drawn based on assumptions or conjectures from such
reports243. However, in circumstances in which it is intended to generate an investigative hypothesis based on
such reports to substantiate a possible criminal accusation, trial, and conviction, it is necessary to balance the
protection of the sources and methods of intelligence gathering with the rights of the parties to the process of
controlling state evidentiary activity and cross-examining witnesses244. This implies that it is necessary for the
State to exhaustively carry out all pertinent evidentiary measures to give sufficient strength to the version of
the facts that are intended to be upheld.
246. The Commission observes that the State did not provide information indicating that the Argentine
criminal procedure and intelligence legislation had normative mechanisms at the date of the events that would
guarantee the above requirements regarding the use of intelligence reports in criminal investigations. As has
been indicated, the incorporation of this type of reports generates, in turn, a duty to carry out additional
procedures that allow confirming the hypotheses contained therein. In this regard, the Commission observes
that, since a large part of the information contained in the case is found in intelligence reports, if proceedings
aimed at obtaining evidence in accordance with the procedural norms that may be incorporated into the file
are not carried out, the possibility of obtaining a judicial ruling that determines the correspondence with the
truth of the accusatory hypotheses raised by the UFI AMIA would be seriously compromised, as would be the
punishment for the individuals accused by said agency.
247. With regard to the identity of the alleged suicide bomber, the Commission notes that, although the
prosecutors took into account a comparative expert opinion, based on an identikit constructed in time close to
the attack, the UFI AMIA in its report of October 2006 attributed to Ibrahim Hussein Berro the material
responsibility of the attack based on intelligence reports that were incorporated into the case by the SIDE. The
Commission observes that it took more than 10 years for the UFI AMIA to identify the existence of stored
biological material that did not correspond to any of the known victims. Likewise, it was not until 2017 that the
UFI AMIA managed to conclude that this sample did not have any genetic correspondence with one of Berro's
brothers.
I/A Court H.R., Case of Norín Catrimán et al. (Leaders, Members and Activist of the Mapuche Indigenous People) v. Chile. Merits, Reparations
and Costs. Judgment of May 29, 2014. Series C No. 279, para. 243.
243 The Commission observes that, for example, the Colombian Constitutional Court has stated that “intelligence reports are based on the
preventive processing of a set of objective operations - they reflect methods and actions carried out - that work on a margin of conjecture
or hypotheses about numerous information which results in some conclusions of the intelligence work ”. In this sense, it has established
that "due to the existence of a broad margin of doubt about the information because it is not sufficiently verified, it is completely valid in
light of the Constitution that the legislator did not grant it the legal effect of evidence within the disciplinary and judic ial processes. But
this does not mean that they go unnoticed altogether, because the content of such reports may constitute a guiding criterion during the
investigation, which meets the duty of the State, by virtue of criminal policy, to investigate based on the notitia criminis". See, Constitutional
Court of Colombia, C-540/12.
244 Regarding the indiciary value granted by the jurisprudence and national legislation of various countries of the European continent of
the so-called "expert intelligence evidence", see: Supreme Court of Spain, Second Criminal Chamber STS 2084/2001 dated December 13,
2001; German Criminal Procedure Act (StPO) § 161.
242
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