4
municipality, in accordance with the Code of Criminal Procedure. The
petitioner, therefore, should have resorted to another authority such as the
Regional or General Office of the Public Prosecutor of the Nation.
Nevertheless, the judge himself sent all the documentation to the Office of
the Public Prosecutor for action. (p. 392, Penal Statute I)
b.
Investigation in the lower criminal court of justice:
On March 2, 1989, in view of the oral complaint of María Nodelia-Parra, a
criminal proceeding was opened before the Second Mobile Court of Criminal
Investigation, although there was no party directly accused at that time. In
line-ups which took place on July 12, 1989 and April 4, 1990, Javier Páez,
one of the alleged witnesses to the disappearance of Caballero-Delgado and
Santana, identified Luis Gonzalo Pinzón-Fontecha, who he already knew as
they were natives of the same region. He also identified Gonzalo Arias-Alturo
after initially confusing him with someone else. Both of these men had been
captured together with Captain Forero-Quintero and Sergeant Báez for
assaulting several gas stations and highway toll booths.
The Second Court of Public Order of Valledupar rendered a court order for
the investigation of the crime on August 1, 1989. Considering that PinzónFontecha had been captured in another case with Captain Héctor Alirio
Forero-Quintero, Corporal Second-Class Norberto Báez-Báez, and Gonzalo
Arias-Alturo, the Court linked them with the disappearance of Isidro
Caballero-Delgado and rendered an order of detention against all of them
except Norberto Báez-Báez.
By decisions of September 11 and September 20, 1990, all those implicated
in this proceeding were absolved and their immediate freedom was ordered.
The case was closed on October 3, 1990.
On March 12, 1992, the criminal investigation was reopened, this time
against Carlos Julio Pinzón-Fontecha, who had been accused by his brother,
Gonzalo Pinzón-Fontecha, in an unsworn statement made on October 17,
1989. According to information in the file, Carlos Julio Pinzón-Fontecha had
died on May 29, 1989.
On November 4, 1994, the complainant requested that the case be reopened
based on testimony rendered before the Public Prosecutor's Delegate for the
Military Forces by an official of the General Prosecutor of the Nation, Doctor
Ricardo Vargas-López. He reported that, as part of an investigation he
conducted as Chief of the Investigation Section, he interviewed Gonzalo
Arias-Alturo, who told him facts which incriminated him and others in the
commission of the crimes of the kidnapping and disappearance of Isidro
Caballero-Delgado and María del Carmen Santana. The Regional Prosecutor's
Office, which is in charge of the investigation, rendered an order of
detention on May 19, 1995 against Gonzalo Arias-Alturo. It abstained from
issuing an order against the others who were implicated. The Court
continued gathering evidence and in so doing made a new attempt to find
the bodies at the site described by Arias-Alturo. That attempt was also
unsuccessful.
c.
Military Criminal Process
On February 27, 1989, preliminary proceedings of inquiry before 26th Court
of Military Criminal Investigations were initiated to determine those
responsible for kidnapping Isidro Caballero-Delgado and María del Carmen