on May 18, 1993. Subsequently, on June 15, 1994, an order was issued to initiate
military criminal proceedings against Mr. Grijalva and another defendant.
131. The CEV’s final report shows that Captain FM threatened and used coercive
measures against several public agents and other persons in order to make them testify
against Mr. Grijalva.
132. In this regard, one of the individuals who testified against Mr. Grijalva, Mr. FCh,
subsequently made a voluntary statement, which was submitted to the Court of Law of
the First Military Zone, in which he recounted that he appeared before the Naval
Intelligence Service in Quito, where he was “subjected to severe investigations” and
that “serious intimidation and irreversible psychological pressure” were “used” to force
him to sign a previously prepared document against Mr. Grijalva Bueno. He recalled
that he was asked in a threatening manner whether he “want[ed] this document [to be
done] with blood or without blood” and, subsequently, they turned off the lights in the
place where he was and began to knock on the walls, the door and the desk, warning
him that he “was not getting out of there until [he] wrote the document.” A few days
later, he was taken to SERINT in Quito, where he remained for approximately two weeks
and where he was again subjected to “indirect psychological pressure, since [he] was
completely ignored and […] every day he was interrogated by Captain [FM] and
[Lieutenant DS], who constantly referred to the document that [he] was made to write.”
He was also told to “prepare [himself] for when [he] was called to testify in Guayaquil
and that in that statement [he] should remain firm with respect to the document and
keep calm.”117 Finally, in his voluntary statement submitted to the judge of the First
Naval Zone, FCh stated that he “retracted what [he] said in [his] initial statement
drafted by the aforementioned members of Naval Intelligence Service, recognizing that
[he] testified under severe coercive measures and irresistible psychological pressure
applied by some negative elements among [his] superiors.”118
133. In addition, Mr. JL made a statement before the criminal judge of the First Naval
Zone, in which he stated that the Inspector General of the Navy ordered him to form a
commission composed of him as head of the Operational Auditing Department of the
Inspector General’s Office of the Navy and two other chiefs, one from the Second and
the other from the Third Department of COOPNA. The commission “had to comply with
an instruction given by the Commander General of the Navy to travel to Puerto Bolívar
in order to verify the facts described in a report presented by SERINT.” He argued that
the content of the commission’s report “was the result of interviews conducted with
crew members and civilian personnel and Lieutenant [T] as officer.” Furthermore, he
indicated in his statement that “in preparing the report with its conclusions and
recommendations, they [did] so […] pointing out that as regards the commission of
crimes, what they indicated were presumptions and they were particularly concerned
that this should be stated [;] [their] task was clear: to verify whether there were indeed
allegations of irregularities [and] they verifi[ed] those allegations with the persons they
interview[ed].” That is to say, “they verified that these were real facts […] that there
were PRESUMPTIONS OF RESPONSIBILITY” (capital letters in the original). He added
that what they wrote in the report “is not proof that, in fact, this was done; that task
corresponds to the level of the court, or to the exercise of justice.” Finally, he said that
the Inspectorate’s Report was prepared on October 30, 1992, although he also stated
that the Inspectorate of the investigative commission produced two reports. The first
one, “related to Captain Grijalva, which went to Quito, was the exclusive decision and
Cf. Voluntary statement of FCh presented to the law judge of the First Naval Zone, November 2,
1998 (evidence file, folios 51 to 52).
118
Cf. Voluntary statement of FCh presented to the law judge of the First Naval Zone, supra.
117
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