8 conclusion of the proceedings on November 4, 2008, with the issuing of the writ of supreme execution upholding the judgment of July 23, 2008. 47. They note that the Inter-American Court has ruled that a State cannot ignore periods of procedural inactivity or the total failure to conduct an investigation and must assume the consequences of 8 such obstructions. In this regard, they note that the archiving of the proceedings before the military courts was carried out under Amnesty Law No. 26492. They report that the motion of res judicata was upheld by the regular courts, which allowed the proceedings to be archived based on the resolution of the military justice system under the Amnesty Law, on account of which that resolution was illegitimate and contrary to the Convention. They note that as a result, for eight years, from 1995 to 2003, the case was archived. 48. They contend that it was at the request of the victims’ next-of-kin that the proceedings were reopened before the civilian courts on January 21, 2003, and that once the case had recommenced, a series of incidents occurred that caused excessive delays in its processing: the ineffective pursuit of formalities, deficiencies in locating and arresting the sole accused, and, finally, delays in making good on the civil redress payments. 49. Based on the foregoing arguments, the petitioners ask the IACHR to declare that the State of Peru violated Articles 4, 5, 8, and 25 of the American Convention, in conjunction with Article 1.1 thereof, with respect to Zulema Tarazona Arrieta, Norma Teresa Pérez Chávez, and Luis Alberto Bejarano Laura, and that it failed to meet its obligations under Article 2 of the American Convention; and that it violated Articles 5, 8, and 25 of the Convention, in conjunction with Article 1.1 thereof, with respect to the next-of-kin of Zulema Tarazona Arrieta, Norma Teresa Pérez Chávez, and Luis Alberto Bejarano. They further ask the IACHR to recommend that the State adopt the measures necessary to provide timely and appropriate redress for the established violations suffered by the alleged victims and their next-of-kin. B. Position of the State 50. Initially, in the year 1998, the State said that the incident in the complaint had occurred during a countersubversive operation, as a result of which the Commander of the First Special Forces Division reported Sergeant Second-Class Antonio Evangelista Pinedo to the Permanent Court-Martial of the Second Army Judicial District as the alleged perpetrator of the crime of negligent homicide, and that the accused later benefited from the Amnesty Law under the deed of execution of the Supreme Military Justice Council of June 20, 1995, pursuant to the Constitution and special provisions. The State noted that the Constitutional Court, in its judgment of April 29, 1997, ruling on the enforcement of Laws Nos. 26479 and 26492, stated that “should there still be victims who have not yet obtained that [civil] redress, they may assert that right before the competent authorities”; Peru thus held that if the petitioners did not secure redress during the proceedings that were sent to the archive, they could have done so through the civil courts. 51. Later, in 2002, the State reported on the proceedings brought before the military justice system and regular courts against Sgt. Antonio Evangelista Pinedo. It said that after the civil complainants had lodged the motion to void the effects of the Amnesty Law pursuant to the InterAmerican Court’s Barrios Altos judgment, the 27th Provincial Criminal Prosecutor’s Office proposed that the motion be ruled inadmissible, on the grounds that the applicants had not met the formalities required for the execution of international judgments established in Article 151 of the Consolidated Text of the Organic Law of the Judiciary. It stated that after the Inter-American Court issued its judgment interpreting the judgment on the merits in the Barrios Altos Case on September 3, 2001, indicating that the resolutions of that judgment were to enjoy general effects, the Supreme Military Justice Council set about reviewing all proceedings in which the Amnesty Law had been applied and all those involving human rights violations. 8 149. The petitioners cite the Inter-American Court’s judgment in the La Cantuta Case, Judgment of November 29, 2006, para.