family groups composed of 111 persons, including the families of 16 of those who died, as well as
13 of those who were injured, and their next of kin.182
VII
MERITS
127. Based on the disagreement introduced by the State in this case, the Court finds it pertinent,
first, to make an analysis in relation to the alleged violation of Articles 8 and 25 of the Convention,
regarding which the State proposed an “acknowledgement of responsibility,” after which it will
analyze the other alleged violations to the rights to life, to personal integrity, to special protection
measures for children, to freedom of movement and residence, to honor and dignity, and to
property, as well as the obligation to adopt domestic legal provisions.
VII-1
RIGHTS TO JUDICIAL GUARANTEES AND TO JUDICIAL PROTECTION
A.
Arguments of the Commission and allegations of the parties
A.1.
State act called “acknowledgement of responsibility”
128. Regarding the affirmations about what occurred in the instant case, the State proposed an
“acknowledgement of responsibility” as follows:
[…] the existence of two decision [of a criminal court and a higher criminal court] that, on the one hand,
sentence and convict the pilots of the Colombian Air Force aircraft for the death and injury of several
villagers of Santo Domingo and, on the other hand, a judgment of a criminal court convicting alias
Grannobles for the same deaths and injuries of the villagers of Santo Domingo, does not provide certainty or
effectiveness to the victims about the truth of the incident that occurred in Santo Domingo.
In this regard, the State partially acknowledges its responsibility in relation to the rights recognized in
Articles 8 and 25 [of the Convention], [not] as the version of the facts and the claims have been presented
by the Commission, [but rather] in the precise terms set out below:
(i) The 2011 criminal proceedings in first and second instance included serious evidentiary shortcomings
that have resulted in the fact that, currently, there is no single final judgment that determines the actual
perpetrators of the fateful events. […] There is another final domestic decision that finds alias Grannobles,
FARC leader, guilty of these acts. The said shortcomings have meant that, currently, a special appeal for
cassation has been filed before the Supreme Court of Justice – the institution responsible for deciding
uncertainties about the authorship of the facts. […] In other words, there are two contradictory and
diametrically opposed judgments.
(ii) The main evidentiary shortcomings [of the criminal judgments in first and second instance] that distorted
the truth of the facts, can be resumed [as follows]:
1. […] The criminal courts omitted to analyze each piece of evidence individually, to then examine them as
a whole based on the rules of sound judicial discretion;
2. The judicial ruling in second instance contains an inappropriate assessment of the evidence;
3. Absence of a chain of custody for the probative elements collected in Santo Domingo, [… in the case of
the] removal of the bodies [which was not carried out] by the competent authorities, but rather they
were taken to Tame unduly by the inhabitants of the village; [… and] in the case of the shrapnel and the
two caliber .50 projectiles handed over by María Panqueva during the judicial inspection procedure.
[This] gives rise to serious doubts concerning the certainty of the circumstances of means, time and
place where the evidence was found;
4. There were serious procedural irregularities in the collection and assessment of probative elements;
5. The conclusions of the FBI report of June 10, 2000, used as evidence in the domestic criminal
proceedings are based on false premises. The evidence forwarded had previously been modified;
182
Cf. Decision 1560 of April 27, 2009, Ministry of National Defense, Legal Affairs Directorate, complying with a
Judgment in favor of Mario Gelves et al., Carmen Edilla Gonzalez Revelo et al. (evidence file, tome 3, folios 1147 to 1155).
‐ 36 ‐