50 ARTICLES 8 AND 25 IN COMBINATION WITH ARTICLE 1(1) AND NON-COMPLIANCE WITH ARTICLE 8 OF THE INTER-AMERICAN CONVENTION TO PREVENT AND PUNISH TORTURE Pleadings of the Commission 134. The Commission argued that the State violated the rights to fair trial and to judicial protection, enshrined in Articles 8 and 25, in combination with Article 1(1), all of them of the American Convention, to the detriment of Emilio Moisés Gómez Paquiyauri and Rafael Samuel Gómez Paquiyauri, because: a) States have the obligation to investigate and punish those responsible for human rights violations carried out by their agents, as well as to provide reparations to the victims or their next of kin. This obligation springs mainly from Article 1(1) of the American Convention, as investigation is “a means to ensure” the rights protected by said instrument and, therefore, it must be seriously fulfilled; b) the obligation to investigate and punish requires punishment not only of the direct perpetrators of the facts in violation of human rights, but also of the masterminds of said facts, as well as the accessories after the fact; c) in the instant case, although Peruvian courts were able to identify the mastermind of the alleged murder of the Gómez Paquiyauri brothers, the State’s subsequent actions to establish his whereabouts, with the aim of trying and punishing him, have been insufficient and do not show due diligence; d) the alleged mastermind has filed several briefs before Peruvian courts “seeking to be exempted from liability regarding [the death] of the Gómez Paquiyauri brothers [Rafael Samuel and Emilio Moisés],” which provides at least some clues that might lead to finding him; e) given the hierarchical structure of the Peruvian National Police, and “the existence of a murder ordered by a Captain of said police force, in the framework of an [alleged] systematic practice of extra-legal executions,” the State should also have investigated who authorized the Captain of the Peruvian National Police to allegedly “order his subordinates to extra-legally execute individuals;” f) in the instant case, there has been a typical pattern of impunity, designed by the Peruvian National Police itself, according to which when there is much public pressure in a case, the armed or police institutions “turn in” the lower-ranking agents, with the promise of providing them with legal advice, security in the prison, assistance for their families, penitentiary benefits, and reentry into the institution once they regain their freedom. In exchange for this, the lower-ranking agents undertake not to accuse their superiors, who usually remain unpunished, as in this case; and g) in the case of hierarchical structures, such as the security or armed forces, investigation and punishment of those responsible of issuing orders that lead to violation of human rights become especially significant, as they