record of the body’s temperature being taken or if the body’s stiffness was assessed; vi) no cause of death was established; vii) it is not clear whether the medical examiner who performed the autopsy actually visited the scene of the crime, and viii) other information from the autopsy is not recorded.256 218. Similarly, the Court finds that in the course of the investigation several evidentiary or evidence-gathering procedures were not carried out, or were not performed correctly or were carried out belatedly. In particular, the Court notes that: i) the expert assessment on the intra-organ trajectory of the bullets that hit the victim was carried out approximately 10 years after his death and, when it was done, could only be based on the autopsy and, furthermore, because of this delay, the trajectory of the bullet left inside the body of Néstor José was not recorded, and therefore the test performed a decade later was unable to elaborate on this point257; ii) no photographs were immediately taken of the crime scene258; iii) the ballistic comparison test was not carried out; iv) the police weapons used in the operation were not handed in by the police until four years after the events of January 1, 2001; v) no photographs were taken of the weapon recovered from the scene259; vi) there is no expert report on the ballistic tests carried out on that weapon or on the weapons of the police officers 260; vii) no inquiries were carried out by experts to determine which police officers had fired their weapons; viii) the planimetric survey was conducted on August 28, 2002, more than a year and a half after the events, even though it had been requested immediately after the death by the Seventh Prosecutor of the State of Falcón;261 ix) the procedure for the reconstruction of the events was requested by the Seventh Prosecutor’s Office four and half years after the events and was actually carried out in April 2011262; x) no fingerprints were taken from the police weapons or from the gun found at the scene of the incident, and xi) although the Prosecutor’s Office asked the Chief Commissioner of the Technical Unit of the Judicial Police to take statements from various officers, including Deputy Inspector Juan Alexis Rojas and Deputy Inspector Valdemar Rodríguez on January 5, 2001, they did not render their statements until 9 months later (on September 26, 2001).263 219. Furthermore, the Court is mindful that the evidence in this case was not properly preserved, as was reported on October 11, 2005, by the Chief of the 256 Cf. Expert report rendered by Freddy Armando Pecerreli Monterroso by affidavit on November 18, 2011 (Evidence file, volume 17, page 5578). 257 Cf. Expert report on Intra-organic Trajectory, of April 15, 2011 (Evidence file, volume 18, pages 5633 to 5634). 258 The Prosecutor’s Office requested photographic record of the scene of the incident on June 9, 2005, i.e., four years after the events. 259 Cf. Expert report rendered by Freddy Armando Pecerreli Monterroso via affidavit on November 18, 2011 (Evidence file, volume 17, page 5571). 260 Cf. Expert report rendered by affidavit by Freddy Armando Pecerreli Monterroso on November 18, 2011 (Evidence file, volume 17, page 5571). 261 Cf. Site survey carried out by the Scientific, Penal and Criminal Investigation Corps -Delegation State Falcón. August 26, 2002 (Evidence file, volume 21, page 6684 a 6685). Then an additional site survey was carried out by the Scientific, Penal and Criminal Investigation Corps-Delegation State Falcón, of August 1, 2005 (Evidence file, volume 21, page 6686 and subsq.). 262 Cf. Official letter Nº FAL-7-514-05 of June 9, 2005, Seventh Prosecutor of the Public Prosecutor’s Office State Falcón (Evidence file, volume 1, page 290, and volume 7, page 3536) and Report on the Reconstruction of the Facts of April 18, 2011 (Evidence file, volume 18, pages 5638 to 5652). 263 Cf. Expert report rendered by the Dr. Juan Carlos Modollel by affidavit on November 24, 2011 (Evidence file, volume 17, page 5539). 55