REPORT No. 99/09 PETITION 12.335 ADMISSIBILITY GUSTAVO GIRALDO VILLAMIZAR DURÁN COLOMBIA October 29, 2009 I. SUMMARY 1. On March 30, 1999, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (hereinafter “the Commission”) received a petition filed by Humanidad Vigente Corporación Jurídica (hereinafter “the petitioners”) alleging the responsibility of the Republic of Colombia (hereinafter “the State,” “the Colombian State” or “Colombia”) for the death of Gustavo Giraldo Villamizar Durán, on August 11, 1996, in the municipality of Saravena, department of Arauca, and the failure to judicially clarify the facts. The petitioners allege that Gustavo Giraldo Villamizar received four gunshot wounds in the back and that in the military criminal court proceedings into his death, important probative elements tending to show that Gustavo Giraldo Villamizar was killed in a confrontation with National Army forces were not considered. 2. The petitioners alleged that the State was responsible for violating the rights to life, humane treatment, judicial guarantees, and judicial protection, established at Articles 4, 5, 8, and 25 of the American Convention on Human Rights (hereinafter the “Convention” or the “American Convention”), in relation to the duty to guarantee, in keeping with Article 1(1) of the Convention. The State, for its part, alleged that the petitioners’ claims were inadmissible considering that they do not tend to establish violations of the American Convention, and that in the event that the Commission were to declare the petition admissible, it would be acting as a fourth instance. The petitioners argue that the exception to the requirement of prior exhaustion of domestic remedies set out at Article 46(2)(a) of the American Convention is applicable. 3. After analyzing the parties’ positions and compliance with the requirements provided for at Articles 46 and 47 of the American Convention, the Commission decided to find the claim admissible for the purposes of examining the alleged violation of Articles 4(1), 8(1), and 25, and, in application of the principle of iura novit curia, Article 11, in conjunction with Article 1(1) of the American Convention, to notify the 1