26 Practices, U.S. Department of State, 1984-1985 and 1986; Human Rights in Guatemala, May 1987-October 1988, an Americas Watch Report, 1988, Chapter VI; Amnesty International Reports of 1984, 1985 and 1986; 1993 Report of the Working Group on Enforced or Voluntary Disappearances, United Nations Human Rights Committee; 1991 Report of the Working Group on Enforced or Voluntary Disappearances, United Nations Commission on Human Rights). 76. On the basis of the evidence examined and bearing in mind the arguments of the parties, the Court considers it proven that, at the time the events in this case occurred, the civil patrols enjoyed an institutional relationship with the Army, performed activities in support of the armed forces' functions, and, moreover, received resources, weapons, training and direct orders from the Guatemalan Army and operated under its supervision. A number of human rights violations, including summary and extrajudicial executions and forced disappearances of persons, have been attributed to those patrols (supra 52.(p)). 77. This institutional relationship was visible in the very decree creating these Civil Defense Committees (CDC), and in the 1996 Guatemala Peace Agreements, which established that the CDCs, "including those previously demobilized, would cease all institutional relations with the Guatemalan Army and would not be reassembled in a way that would restore that relationship" (not underlined in the original) (Agreement on the Strengthening of the Civil Authority and Function of the Army in a Democratic Society, para. 61). More particularly, Decree 143-96 of the Congress of the Republic of Guatemala of November 28, 1996, which rescinded Decree-Law 19-86, which had legally established the Civil Defense Committees, stated in one of its "Considering" that: the function of some civil self-defense patrols, now known as Voluntary Civil Defense Committees, had been perverted over the years... and that they had fulfilled missions belonging to the regular State organs, provoking repeated human rights violations by members of those committees (no underlining in the original). 78. As a consequence, the Court declares that the acquiescence of the State of Guatemala in the perpetration of such activities by the civil patrols indicates that those patrols should be deemed to be agents of the State and that the actions they perpetrated should therefore be imputable to the State. X CONCERNING ARTICLE 7 79. In its application the Commission claimed that Mr. Nicholas Blake had been arbitrarily abducted by the El Llano Civil Patrol. His detention had been effected without a warrant issued by a competent authority and without fulfillment the procedures enshrined in the domestic laws. Mr. Nicholas Blake had neither been told the reasons for his detention nor was he immediately taken before the competent authority to be tried within a reasonable time. 80. In its answer to the application, the State maintained that both Mr. Nicholas Blake and Mr. Griffith Davis had freely and voluntarily travelled to an area of conflict, despite the risks inherent in the lack of security in those areas. It affirmed that Mr. Nicholas Blake had not been intercepted by any State agent; taken to a place of detention; subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or torture; questioned by any authority; nor forcibly or involuntarily disappeared or executed by the State.