430. The Court finds, nevertheless that there is no need for a specific ruling on violation of
the right to know the truth, given the violations declared above and the particular details of
the instant case.
H. Conclusion
431. The Court finds, in summary, that there were irregularities in the handling of the scene
of the events and in the removal of the bodies and a lack of rigor in performing the 1997
autopsies, and as a result, the initial procedures and the first measures to secure the evidence
were not even minimally diligent. Moreover, the processes before the Peruvian courts were not
developed within a reasonable period, and the State has not demonstrated that it conducted
all the necessary steps to locate one of the accused who is a fugitive and in contempt. Based
on these arguments and on the State’s partial recognition of responsibility, the Court concludes
that the State is responsible for violating Articles 8(1) and 25(1) of the American Convention,
read in conjunction with Article 1(1) thereof, in injury of the family members of Eduardo Nicolás
Cruz Sánchez, Herma Luz Meléndez Cueva and Víctor Salomón Peceros Pedraza, to wit, Edgar
Odón Cruz Acuña, Herma Luz Cueva Torres, Florentín Peceros Farfán, Nemecia Pedraza de
Peceros and Jhenifer Solanch Peceros Quispe, in the terms of the foregoing paragraphs.
XI
RIGHT TO HUMANE TREATMENT, READ IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE OBLIGATION
TO RESPECT RIGHTS
432. The Court will use this chapter to outline the arguments of the parties and the interAmerican Commission and then rule on the merits of the allegations that Article 5 of the
American Convention was breached in injury of the family members of Eduardo Nicolás Cruz
Sánchez, Herma Luz Meléndez Cueva and Víctor Salomón Peceros Pedraza.
A. Arguments of the parties and of the Commission
433. The Commission said that the State had not provided sufficient judicial guarantees for
the alleged victims, as it had not conducted a diligent, effective investigation or attributed
responsibilities to the principals and abettors of the alleged extrajudicial executions of their
relatives. The Commission argued that the failure of authorities to deliver true justice had
violated the personal integrity of the families by prolonging the already painful events they
had lived through as they lost their loved ones to alleged extrajudicial execution. In the view
of the Commission, other episodes the families had suffered through were that the State had
not informed them about the transfer or burial of the bodies or notified them about the findings
of the autopsies on the bodies of the alleged victims or the causes and circumstances of their
deaths, and finally, it had denied them any real access to justice, as the family members
needed to contend with “the slow pace of the process, […] the attempts to cover up the deaths
and the lack of diligence by authorities in both the ordinary courts and the military jurisdiction.”
The Commission emphasized that the alleged victims had been subjected to disinformation by
the State when it did not allow them to know the whereabouts of their family members.
434. The Commission contended more specifically that the facts surrounding the alleged
extrajudicial executions of Eduardo Nicolás Cruz Sánchez, Herma Luz Meléndez Cueva and
Víctor Salomón Peceros Pedraza amounted to breaches of Article 5 of the American Convention,
in injury of their families. The Commission noted, in this regard, that the Court had repeatedly
established in its case law that the next of kin of the victims of human rights violations may
also be victims in their own right. The Commission also pointed to the Court’s case law
regarding the rights of the families of victims of extrajudicial execution, namely that there is
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