29 expressly the matters referred to in the preceding paragraph that have been considered determinant for adjusting the punishment.49 Once the court had classified some of the defendants, including Mr. Raxcacó 78. Reyes, as “direct authors” of kidnapping or abduction, it applied the death penalty to them. It declared that: Having proved the effective participation of the accused as immediate authors of the illegal act that is being prosecuted [...], the Court imposes on them the punishment indicated in the operative paragraphs of this judgment[,] because no one has the right to deprive another person of his freedom and to negotiate this, without taking into account the minimum respect for the human rights of the victim. The mere abduction and deprivation of freedom of movement, in the way the fact that is being prosecuted occurred, produces irreparable damage to the victim, considering also that the person kidnapped was a child, which reveals total contempt for a child’s innocence and purity, as well as a challenge and an affront to society […].50 79. The Court finds that the regulation in force for the crime of kidnapping or abduction in the Guatemalan Penal Code orders the automatic and generic application of the death penalty to the perpetrators of this illegal act (“the death penalty shall be applied to them”) and, in this regard, considers it pertinent to recall that the United Nations Human Rights Committee considered that the mandatory nature of capital punishment which deprives the subject of his right to life, prevents consideration of whether, in the specific circumstances of the case, this exceptional form of punishment is compatible with the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.51 80. Likewise, in a previous case, the Court found that the application of the mandatory death penalty treated the accused “not as individual, unique human beings, but as undifferentiated and faceless members of a mass who will be subjected to the blind application of the death penalty.”52 81. Article 201 of the Penal Code, as it is written, has the effect of subjecting those accused of the crime of kidnapping or abduction to criminal proceedings in which the specific circumstances of the crime and of the accused are never considered, such as the criminal record of the accused and of the victim, the motive, the extent and severity of the harm caused, and the possible attenuating or aggravating circumstances, among other considerations concerning the perpetrator and the crime. 49 It should be indicated that the Inter-American Court condemned the criteria of dangerousness in the following terms: “the introduction into the penal text of the dangerousness of the agent as a criterion for classifying the facts and applying determined penalties is incompatible with the principle of criminal legality and, consequently, contrary to the Convention.” Case of Fermín Ramírez, supra note 1, para. 96. 50 Cf. judgment delivered by the Sixth Court on Criminal Sentencing, Drug-Trafficking and Environmental Crimes of Guatemala on May 14, 1999 (file of appendixes to the application, appendix 5, folios 100-167). 51 Cf. UN, Human Rights Committee, Kennedy v. Trinidad and Tobago (Communication No. 845/1999), UN Doc. CCPR/C/74/D/845/1999 of March 28, 2002, para. 7(3); UN, Human Rights Committee, Thompson v. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (Communication No. 806/1998), UN Doc. CCPR/C/70/D/806/1998 of December 5, 2000, para. 8(2); UN, Human Rights Committee, Pagdayawon v. the Philippines, Communication 1110/2002, para. 5(2). 52 Cf. Case of Hilaire, Constantine and Benjamin et al., supra note 39, para. 105.

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