95 threats and acts of intimidation against judges and prosecutors who have tried to move the judicial proceeding forward; threats against and following of various legal advisors in this case, the sister of the victim, and members of the AVANCSO foundation; c) the State did not allow Helen Mack Chang to have access to an effective legal remedy with guarantees of due process, to try and to punish all those responsible for the murder of Myrna Mack Chang. The Commission recognizes that in this case there have been some results and there has been partial impunity, as one of the direct perpetrators of the crime, Noel de Jesús Beteta Álvarez, has been tried and sentenced. However, it is the understanding of the Commission that, pursuant to Articles 1(1), 8 and 25 of the Convention, the State has the obligation to try and to punish all the direct perpetrators and accessories of the facts that breached the human rights. In this case, more than “twelve” years after the extra-legal execution of Myrna Mack Chang, only one of the direct perpetrators has been duly punished, and all the persons legally accused as accessories of the crime have been absolved, openly contradicting the evidence against them. The judicial proceeding against them has been delayed more than “twelve” years and, as the State itself has acknowledged, it has gone beyond reasonable terms pursuant to the Convention. The judicial authorities are responsible for this unjustifiable delay due to “an indifferent management of the proceeding that has allowed and processed frivolous remedies, not respecting procedural terms in attempting to detach themselves from the proceeding through alleged queries on competence.” The State has considerably exceeded the three criteria set forth by the Honorable Court to establish reasonable term, that is, the complexity of the case, the behavior of the authorities, and the behavior of the parties; d) from the initial phase of the investigation, the judicial proceeding showed serious irregularities. Inadequate care of the Guatemalan authorities at the scene of the crime was made evident by the precarious gathering of physical evidence that made it impossible to establish the direct perpetrators of the crime by means of scientific evidence, for which reason the preliminary investigation was based on testimonial evidence; e) a grave irregularity committed during the investigation of the facts was the modification of the police report prepared by the agents entrusted with investigating the murder. The September 29, 1990 report drafted by agent José Mérida Escobar, in which he reached the conclusion that the motive of the murder was political in nature and he named Noel de Jesús Beteta as one of the suspects of the crime, was kept secret by orders of the Director of the National Police and subsequently modified by means of a report submitted to the judicial authorities on November 4, 1990, stating that the motive was robbery and that there were no suspects of the crime; f) the army, protecting itself behind military secret, has systematically refused to supply certain information requested by the judicial authorities, which demonstrates its unwillingness to cooperate in the investigations. The Ministry of National Defense has supplied only part of the information requested, arguing that the documents that have not been supplied address military or diplomatic matters of national security that are confidential information pursuant to Article 30 of the Political Constitution of Guatemala;

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