violation, on the part of the State of Honduras, of its obligation to ensure and protect the right to life found in Article 4 of the American Convention. 10. They allege that the first police actions consisted of the arrest of four persons suspected of having committed the crime. They assert that on February 26, 2001 the investigative stage of the proceedings was concluded and that there was a judicial order to go to trial, with the perpetrators and abettors to be tried separately. 11. Regarding the defendants accused of being the principal perpetrators of the crime, on October 16, 2002,5 Lucas García Alfaro was found guilty of the murder of Mr. Carlos Escalera Mejía. Mr. García irregularities alleged they state the following: 1) it was not until November 13, 1997, one month after the murder of Mr. Escaleras Mejía, that the judge conducted a personal inspection of the crime scene; 2) there was no autopsy and there were no photographs of the body, both of which are necessary to perform an effective investigation of a death; 3) it was not until March 27, 1999, 17 months after the events, that the Prosecutor requested information on the examination of the body from the forensic scientist of the city of La Ceiba, “because of the lack of a forensic report as part of the proceedings”; 4) the Prosecutor unsuccessfully twice requested a court order for the surrendering of a weapon that had been confiscated from the four suspects the night of the crime and which, because it was the Army’s property, had been returned to the latter without subjecting it to a ballistics test; according to the petitioners to date there has been no ballistics test performed; 5) the only procedure carried out in 1998 was on February 9, when witness Narciso Daniel Castro Orozco appeared in court to add to his deposition; from March 17, 1998 to February 17, 1999, there was nothing added to the criminal proceedings; 6) Carlos Urbina’s deposition has not yet been added to the record, despite the fact that the Prosecutor so requested it on two occasions, i.e., October 24, 1997 and May 27, 1999; 7) There have been ten prosecutors over the course of the trial, detracting continuity from the investigations; 8) the criminal complaint presented by the brother of the victim on November 13, 2000, requested an inspection of the company that had allegedly issued a check implicating the abettors, as well as a court order for the bank involved to confirm the cashing, or lack thereof, of the check (Court File, page 2829). It was, however, not until ten months after this evidence was offered that the inspection of the company took place to confirm the issuing of the check in question (Court File, page 479). 9) The court’s ruling of August 20, 2001, dismissing with prejudice the charges against two of the alleged abettors, was handed down without considering the Prosecutor’s request for the admission of the testimony of Mario Gutiérrez, an important witness. 5 The petitioners assert that, during the first months of the investigation, the names of several possible perpetrators were mentioned, but little was done to investigate their connection to the case. 4