- 43 - Carlos Castaño, and as a result Mr. Narváez was recently implicated in the criminal proceedings.171 114. The Court considers that, from the body of evidence provided, and from the context in which the facts occurred, it can be established that other members of the Army and members of one or several paramilitary groups took part in the planning and execution of the murder; and this is clear even from the findings of the domestic investigations.172 115. In this regard, the Court finds that, in the context in which the execution of Senator Cepeda Vargas was committed, and because it was perpetrated by members of the Army – in other words, by the State itself – together with members of paramilitary groups, it required a complex organization, which has also been revealed by the difficulty to discover all the authors, both masterminds and direct perpetrators. In cases such as this, it is precisely the division of tasks among the masterminds and direct perpetrators that makes it hard to clarify the connections between them; in addition, the characteristics of the planning and execution of the crime tend to make it difficult to establish a connection between the two levels of authors.173 C. THE OBLIGATION TO INVESTIGATE SENATOR MANUEL CEPEDA VARGAS THE EXTRAJUDICIAL EXECUTION OF 116. Part of the general obligation to guarantee the rights recognized in the Convention is a specific obligation to investigate cases alleging violations of those rights; in other words, this obligation arises from Article 1(1) of the Convention in relation to the right that must be protected or guaranteed.174 117. It has been this Court’s constant case law that, in cases of extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, torture and other serious human rights violations, conducting ex officio a prompt, genuine, impartial and effective investigation is a fundamental factor and a condition for the guarantee and protection of certain rights affected by these situations, such as personal liberty, personal integrity and life.175 In these cases, the State authorities must conduct this investigation as an inherent juridical obligation, over and above the procedural activity 171 Cf. Office of the Prosecutor General of the Nation, Decision issued by the 26th Special Prosecutor of the National Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Unit in Investigation 2182 on October 14, 2009 (evidence file, tome XXII, attachment 6 to the final arguments of the representatives, folios 9082 to 9084). 172 According to the Attorney General’s office, it was possible to infer that “there was a coordinated action between two groups that ensured the success of the criminal intention; to affirm the contrary is unreasonable, because it would be like assuming that the two groups coincided in time, place and circumstances, without any prior agreement, and this hypothesis does not occur in highly elaborate types of organized crime.” Opinion on the legality of the second instance ruling of the office of the Attorney General of the Republic in relation to Investigation No. 18,428, supra note 101, folios 1842 to 1843. 173 The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights affirms that: “The presumption behind system crimes is that they are generally of such a scale that they require a degree of organization to perpetrate. […] Most often, this organization will be the apparatus of the State.” Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Rule-of-law Tools for Post-Conflict States, Prosecution Initiatives (HR/PUB/06/4), United Nations, New York and Geneva, 2006, p. 11. 174 Cf. Case of Velásquez Rodríguez v. Honduras. Merits, supra note 36, para. 162; Case of González et al. (“Campo Algodonero”) v. Mexico, supra note 15, para. 287, and Case of Perozo et al. v. Venezuela, supra note 49, para. 298. 175 Cf. Case of the Pueblo Bello Massacre v. Colombia, supra note 136, para. 145; Case of Radilla Pacheco v. Mexico, supra note 24, para. 143, and Case of Anzualdo Castro v. Peru, supra note 36, para. 65.