354. Based on this reasoning, the Court will now examine the remaining arguments about possible violation of the right to judicial guarantees and the right to judicial protection, read in conjunction with the general obligations to respect and guarantee and the adoption of domestic legal effects, structured as follows: the initial procedures and securing of evidence; the duty to initiate an investigation ex officio; the military courts’ lack of jurisdiction to hold trial on the alleged extrajudicial executions of Herma Luz Meléndez Cueva and Víctor Salomón Peceros Pedraza; the alleged violation of the obligation to adopt domestic legal effects under the terms of Article 2, read in conjunction with Articles 8 and 25, of the American Convention; the lack of due diligence, and the right to know the truth. B. Initial procedures and securing of evidence Arguments of the parties and of the Commission 355. The Commission began by recalling that in cases of death at the hands of agents of the state, “it is particularly important for the competent authorities to take all reasonable measures to secure whatever evidence is necessary for conducting the investigation.” The Commission added that, as stipulated in the United Nations Manual on Extrajudicial Executions, due diligence in the forensic examination of a death requires a continuous chain of custody for all forensic evidence, but the instant case presented several irregularities in collecting and preserving evidence. It emphasized: (i) the bodies were removed by the military judge and prosecutor one day after the incident, and it would appear that the case file contained no information to suggest that the scene of the crime had been secured at that time; (ii) at least two experts appear to have been compelled by military authorities to sign the report on removal of the bodies even though they had not been present; (iii) the military judge had ordered autopsies to be done in a facility that was ill-suited for such a procedure, specifically, the Central Hospital of the National Police of Peru, whose staff were not accustomed to performing these procedures; (iv) entry was barred to any personnel not involved in the autopsies, and the examiners themselves were not allowed to take pictures or videos; (vi) no dental paraffin tests were performed, and no ballistics comparisons were done of the weapons used in the operation; (vii) there was no analysis of the shooting distance of bullets lodged in the bodies; (viii) only three of the 14 bodies were identified, one of which was Eduardo Nicolás Cruz Sánchez; and (ix) the burial of the remains of the 14 MRTA members was clandestine. 356. The Commission noted, in this regard, that the shortcomings and irregularities in the early investigations in 1997 “were acknowledged by the State in its answering brief,” and “expert witness Cartagena Pastor confirmed them”. The Commission recalled that, from the very beginning, the procedures were under the control of military authorities, who had apparently placed “serious constraints on developing the most significant evidence”. According to the Commission, “not only were limits placed on the scope of the autopsies, and the performance of supplementary examinations was blocked, but obstacles were set in the way, experts were denied access, and graphic records were not made available.” 357. The Commission maintained, for all these reasons, that the State had failed to preserve the necessary evidence and had failed to conduct crucial procedures or had done so in ways that lacked the diligence required to explain the need and proportionality of the use of force by agents of the state who took part in the operation in which Eduardo Nicolás Cruz Sánchez, Herma Luz Meléndez Cueva and Víctor Salomón Peceros Pedraza lost their lives. The Commission held that all this amounted to a failure to secure the evidence concerning the facts and also a failure to implement the procedures that would have been essential for investigating them.