256. Despite the foregoing, other possible procedures were not implemented, or procedures were expanded or supplemented many years after the events (infra para. 259). The Court has also verified that, during the investigation, some initial procedures revealed omissions and irregularities, namely: a) Since there were a series of omissions in the autopsy, the court requested its expansion in 2006, because all the bullets that entered Eduardo Landaeta’s body and did not have an exit hole had not been recovered (supra para. 109). Also, the autopsy had only established the cause of death and made a general mention of other injuries observed (supra para. 102), without making a detailed analysis of them, which might have helped provide greater details in order to evaluate whether they could have been caused while Eduardo Landaeta was being detained unlawfully and arbitrarily. Furthermore, the Court considers that the autopsy did not comply with the minimum requirements to establish details of the time, date, cause and manner of the death of Eduardo Landaeta, or to determine how the events occurred, respecting certain basic formalities. The Court therefore concludes that this autopsy suffered from the same omissions, 336 inter alia, as those already established by the expert witness José Pablo Baraybar in the case of Igmar Landaeta (supra para. 232); b) There is no record in the Court’s case file that the crime scene was cordoned off in order to preserve any evidence that might have been there. In this regard, the Court notes that this error made it impossible to collect all the spent cartridges and the shells of the 15 bullets that hit Eduardo Landaeta’s body; c) The forensic testing of five bullets, nine spent cartridges, and other objects recovered from the scene of the crime and from the body of Eduardo Landaeta was carried out in July 1998; however, it only concluded that the nine spent cartridges found were 7.65 mm caliber, and failed to determine the weapons from which the bullets found had been fired, because no ballistics comparison was made between the bullets found in Eduardo Landaeta’s body and the weapons used by the agents, 337 and d) The weapons used by the police agents were presumably mislaid; however, no precise information on them was requested until 2004. 257. The Court has indicated that it is the actions taken nearest to the time of an incident by the authorities in charge of the investigation that usually provide the most appropriate indications to facilitate the identification of evidentiary material for the case. Therefore, the Court finds that the omissions committed during the initial procedures have resulted in the obstruction of the investigation, in violation of the obligation to investigate with due diligence. Landaeta’s clothes, and of two pieces of cotton with a reddish-brown substance, and some of the bullets handed over by the CTPJ, performed by the CTPJ Criminalistics Laboratory between 1997 and July 1998. 336 Regarding the autopsy that was performed, expert witness José Pablo Baraybar concluded that: (a) “there is no autopsy report as such, [but rather] a [very brief] document notifying the results of the autopsy […], that does not meet the standards required for the investigation; (b) photographs that support or corroborate the conclusions of the report are not [attached or mentioned]; (c) [there is no mention of] x-rays being taken, or whether or not there were bullets or fragments of bullets inside the victim, and (d) [although the injuries found were listed,] there is no type of photographic record of [them], or any reference to the characteristics of the injuries such as their color, trajectory, depth or structure.” Cf. Testimony of expert witness José Pablo Baraybar of January 29, 2014 (merits file, folios 826 to 828). In this regard, the State indicated that, at the time of the events, the corpse was not photographed during the autopsy, but rather general photographs were taken of the corpse to show the injuries present on the body of the deceased and their specific characteristics. Cf. Response of the State of May 30, 2014, concerning the helpful evidence requested by the Court in a letter of the Secretariat (merits file, folio 1247). 337 Cf. Forensic appraisal issued by Freddy Winderman and Elías Azuz on July 22, 1998 (annexes to the answering brief, folios 7229 and 7230). 71