24.
Having determined which of the testimonies offered by the representatives will be
received by the Court and the method by which they will be received, the specific purpose
and intended use of the said assistance must now be established.
25.
In this regard, the President stipulates that the financial assistance will be allocated
to cover essential travel, accommodation and daily expenses for Yelitze Lisbeth Moreno
Cova and Michael Reed Hurtado to appear at the seat of the Court and provide their
testimony at the public hearing to be held in this case. In addition, financial assistance will
be provided to cover the expenses of the notarization and sending of two testimonies
provided by affidavit, as determined by the presumed victims or their representatives, in
accordance with the provisions of the first operative paragraph of this Order. The
representatives must advise the Court of the name of the two deponents whose affidavits
will be covered by the Assistance Fund, and also forward an estimate of the cost of
preparing a sworn statement in Venezuela and sending it, within the time frame established
in the operative paragraphs of this Order. With regard to the persons who will appear at the
public hearing, the Court will take the necessary and pertinent measures to cover the costs
of their transfer, accommodation and daily expenses with resources from the Victims’
Assistance Fund.
26.
As required by Article 4 of the Court’s Rules for the Operation of the Assistance Fund
(hereinafter “Rules of the Assistance Fund”), the Secretariat is ordered to open an expense
file in order to account for and document all the expenditures that are made with resources
from the said Fund.
27.
Lastly, the President recalls that, in accordance with Article 5 of the Rules of the
Legal Assistance Fund, the respondent State will be informed of the expenditure made from
the Assistance Fund so that it may submit its observations, if it so wishes, within the
corresponding time frame.
F. Request to incorporate an expert opinion into the instant case
28.
The representatives asked that the Court transfer the expert opinion provided by
Magaly Vásquez at the public hearing in the case of the Barrios Family v. Venezuela, “with
regard to the examination of Venezuela’s criminal laws” (supra having seen paragraph 3).
For its part, the State asked the Court to reject this request, because it considered that this
expert opinion “was reasoned in an adversarial context based on the extrajudicial execution;
and accused and identified several police agents in person, because of a confrontation
between these police agents and individuals with a criminal record who were breaking the
law, a fact that was not in dispute between the parties.” It added that “[a]ll the
circumstances of the Barrios Family case are very different from the Castillo González case,
because the latter does not concern an extrajudicial execution. […] Unfortunately, Joe
Castillo never requested protection measures for himself and was then executed by hired
murderers who it has not been possible to identify owing to the complexity of the historical
Colombian conflict and the constant penetration of Colombian paramilitary groups that
operate on Venezuelan territory” (supra having seen paragraph 13).
29.
The President notes that the purpose of the expert opinion of Magaly Vázquez is
similar to that of Pedro Berrizbeitia with regard to “the laws in force under Venezuelan
criminal procedure regarding the role of the State as guarantor of the right to life” and to
“due diligence.” The President also considers that Mr. Berrizbeitia’s opinion will refer
specifically to the investigations conducted in the instant case, and could therefore be more
appropriate to assess the existence of the alleged flaws in the investigation. Based on the
principle of procedural economy and promptness, the President finds that it is unnecessary
7