10
defense that the first declarations were made under pressure.12 In the other hand, the
defense could not cross examine the regretful witness identified with a code. Finally,
witness Mantilla did not appear in the oral trial to ratify her accusations, which was also
alleged by the defense of Mrs. De La Cruz. 13
22.
In the judgment of the Supreme Court it is established that, according to the
aforementioned declarations, Mrs. De La Cruz Flores: i)cured a member of ‘Sendero
Luminoso’, ii)”in its condition of ‘activist’, carried out the attention and surgical [or
‘healings” a] of the senderistas, iii) that afterwards “she remained as ‘support’ or
‘school,’” iv) attended to “the burns” of another member of the aforementioned
organization, v) “formed part of the health subsection of Socorro Popular,” and vi) –
according to key witness A223000001- “she was responsible of delivering medicine and
provide of attention to terrorist patients.”
23.
The Court observes that the Supreme Criminal Chamber expressly stated that “it
assumes the doctrine […] institut[ed by] the [J]udgment of the Inter-American Court” in
the present case regarding that “a medical act cannot be penalized,” and therefore “the
medical act constitutes […] a generic cause of lack of correspondence with the definition
of the crime.” However, the Supreme Court indicated that “the charges attributed” to
Mrs. De La Cruz Flores “are not centered in the fact of having attended patients in a
circumstantial or isolated manner”, but “were linked or connected as clandestine
collaborators for the ends of the terrorist organization,” and that in that sense
“obtain[ed] and offer[ed] her participation in the works – certainly repeated, organized, and
voluntary – of support for the wounded and sick of the subversive movement, occupying both
the offering of medical assistance – whose analysis cannot be made in an isolated manner, but
also in attention with the acts concretely developed and proved – and also of providing
medications and other types of offerings to the wounded and sick of the terrorist organization –
whose closeness to the wounded or sick, the information of their state and location were
offered to her by the terrorist organization itself, and not that these had gone to her for
reasons of urgency or emergency […]”
24.
In this sense, this Tribunal considers that regarding the establishment of the
conviction in the second process followed against the victim:
i) the same witnesses were used that generated the conviction of Mrs. De La Cruz
Flores in the first procedure;
ii)declarations of witnesses that had already been taken into account by this
Tribunal in its Judgment of Merits of 2004, when it considered that in the present
case there existed penalization of the medical act,14 and
iii) there was not any more specific information regarding acts corresponding to
the crime definition of affiliation for which Mrs. De La Cruz was prosecuted –
despite the express requests of information made by this Tribunal in that sense
(supra Having Seen 9 and 10)-.
Therefore, the Tribunal concludes that the second conviction imposed on the victim is
developed in terms very similar to the first one, previously analyzed by this Court,
namely, regarding medical acts such as surgical interventions, healings, and delivery of
medicines and attentions to those wounded or sick.
12
Defense allegation – discord in that which requests to declare as null in the judgment of July 10,
2006, (case file of supervision of compliance of Judgment, Folder IV, pages 1185, 1190 and 1191).
13
Defense allegation – discord in that which requests to declare null in the judgment of July 10, 2006,
supra note 12, page 1182.
14
Cf. Case of De la Cruz Flores, supra note 5, par. 73.16, footnote on page 46, and par. 102.