3 63(2) of the American Convention on Human Rights (hereinafter “the Convention” or “the American Convention”) and Article 25 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court (hereinafter “the Rules of Procedure”), a request for expansion of the provisional measures ordered by the Court in favor of “Helen Mack Chang et al.”, in order to protect Jorge Guillermo Lemus Alvarado, “a witness in the case, which is being heard before the domestic courts, concerning the assassination of Myrna Mack Chang,” and his next of kin. In this communication, the Commission indicated that Jorge Guillermo Lemus Alvarado “was being subjected to a series of grave acts of harassment and aggression by agents of the State of Guatemala” and based its request on the following facts: a) In November 2002, Jorge Guillermo Lemus Alvarado was driving his vehicle, with his family, and was followed by four unknown persons, “of military aspect”, who were riding in a white, dual-cabin pickup truck. During the course of his route, which started in seventeenth street between third and fourth avenues in Zone 1, Guatemala City, the vehicle following him tried to pass him and crash into him several times. Consequently, Mr. Lemus made his family abandon the car, telling them to take refuge in a commercial center, and then continued on towards sixth avenue, “while the hostile vehicle continued harassing him.” Finally, when he reached nineteenth street, he stopped his car, got out rapidly, and used his cellular telephone to call the offices of the United Nations Verification Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA), so that the vehicle that was following him withdrew. A similar persecution took place some days later from the area of Zone 13 of the city to the center and, on that occasion, Jorge Guillermo Lemus Alvarado and his family chose to seek protection in the offices of the “Prensa Libre” newspaper; b) On April 4, 2003, a gray pickup truck ran into the vehicle driven by Jorge Guillermo Lemus Alvarado; this made him lose control of the vehicle, crash into a wall and lose consciousness. When he came round, two motorized policemen dragged him violently out of the car. Then, a pickup truck of the National Civil Police arrived and a tow-truck, which took his car. Subsequently, he was taken to the Santa Elena National Hospital, in Santa Cruz del Quiché, where he received medical care and was hospitalized. While he was in hospital, the police allocated a guard to him. On April 5, 2003, a lawyer, whose last name was Cifuentes, offered his services at the request of a man whose last names were Gildardo Lemus, who Jorge Guillermo Lemus Alvarado does not know. Mr. Lemus Alvarado was condemned by the Magistrate of Santa Cruz de El Quiché to pay a fine of 500.00 quetzales, for the accident he suffered; and c) On April 11, 2003, when Jorge Guillermo Lemus Alvarado was walking on sixteenth street, after leaving his children’s house in Zone 1, a police patrol stopped suddenly and two members of the National Civil Police got out, ran towards him, and detained him. The police ordered him to place himself against a wall; they searched him illegally; they threw his belongings in the street, and they hit him while he asked them to explain what was happening. The following day, he went to the Eleventh Police Station to lodge a complaint about these acts; there he realized that the persons who had attacked him recently were in one of the police cars which was on the premises, and that