15
Loor was tortured during the time he was under Panamanian custody,”35 however, it
found the State responsible “for not carrying out a contemporaneous investigation of
the torture allegations against Mr. Vélez Loor.”36
46.
In its application before this Court, the Commission referred only abstractly to
the allegations of torture made within the scope of the present case, but without
relating them to the facts or acts that would constitute torture, nor did it make any
allusion to the circumstances of the manner, time, and place in which they occurred.
Likewise, it refers to a medical and psychological examination conducted on Mr. Vélez
Loor in Bolivia in June of 2008, and it observes that the same examination conforms
in some aspects to the complaints of torture presented by Mr. Vélez Loor in the
framework of another petition against Ecuador that also was processed before the
Commission.
47.
It was the representatives in their brief of pleadings and arguments, and the
alleged victim in his declaration before this Court, who referred in a detailed manner
to the events that constituted the alleged acts of torture. In this understanding, the
Tribunal considers that the information provided by the representatives and the
alleged victim himself with respect to the alleged acts of torture and the manner,
time, and place in which they had occurred is complementary to the factual
framework of the complaint in regard to clarifying to the events over which falls the
duty to investigate, but these events cannot be considered autonomously as
constitutive of a violation in light of the complaint present by the Commission (supra
para. 43). Under this understanding, the Court shall make an allusion to the events
that constitute torture according to the representatives of the alleged victim only as
an object from which to proceed to analyze the alleged obligation to investigate these
acts included by the Commission in its application.
48.
It then follows, in conformity with the factual framework of the present case, it
is not viable to analyze the events presented by the representatives as a separate
violation within Articles 5(2) of the American Convention and 2 of the Convention
against Torture. However, these events shall be taken into account, inasmuch as they
give content to the duty of the State to initiate immediately an investigation in
respect to the supposed acts of torture.
49.
Notwithstanding the abovementioned, upon analyzing the events of the
complaint relative to the conditions under which the deprivation of liberty of Mr. Vélez
Loor developed, the Tribunal shall be able to make judgments on other legal aspects
in reference to humane treatment established in Article 5 of the Convention.
50.
Regarding the arguments of the representatives related to the alleged violation
of Article 24 of the American Convention, the Tribunal considers that, in the current
state of evolution of the system of protection of human rights, it is within the power
of the representative of the alleged victim to include legal claims different than those
filed by the Commission, as long as they are founded within the factual basis of the
application. Moreover, the State has had every procedural opportunity to submit its
defense arguments concerning said pleadings before this Tribunal.37 Therefore, such
35
In this respect, it concluded that “given the nature of the contradictory allegations regarding the
alleged acts of torture and the lack of specific information of the parties, the Commission does not have
sufficient information to find that acts of torture had been committed by the State. […] Therefore, taking
into account it does not have sufficient evidence of acts of torture, the Commission concludes that the
State has not violated article 2 of the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture in relation
to the allegations of torture of Mr. Vélez Loor”. Report N° 37/09 (Merits), Case 12.581, Jesús Tranquilino
Vélez Loor - Panama, March 27, 2009 (case file of the evidence, tome I, appendix 1 to the application, folio
31).
36
Report No. 37/09, supra note 35.
37
Cf. Case of Garibaldi, supra note 9, para. 39.