of certificates, including certificates of residence, birth, and death both for victims and survivors of the
massacre, and for Colonel Eliú Cabrera Padilla, who by then had died.124
44.
On November 18, 2010, the petitioners informed the Commission of the serious risk to the prosecutors
in charge of the investigation in the case and the failure of the State to provide adequate protection, despite the
involvement of those prosecutors in this and other emblematic cases of gross human rights violations
committed during the armed conflict in Guatemala.125
45.
Between the transfer of the case to the High Risk Court on December 15, 2010,126 and March 2011, a
series of measures were requested, including a social history expert's opinion and a military expert's opinion.
In addition, death certificates, birth certificates, and identity documents of the persons killed in the massacre
were collected, as were declarations from witnesses.127 The criminal case file was transferred by the San Benito
Criminal Court on February 2011, and the record of the hearing of December 20, 2007, was finally made public
and forwarded in November 2011.128 In March 2012, the Public Prosecution Service again took declarations
from a number of survivors of the massacre,129 and in December 2012 and August 2013 new certificates were
obtained for a series of people. 130 On December 26, 2012, the death was finally registered of Cristóbal Rey
González González, the only victim identified by means of the DNA tests carried out in 2009.131
46.
In July 2013, the prosecutor's office requested additional information from different state bodies.132
On April 3, 2013, FAMDEGUA requested the interment of the victims exhumed in 2009.133 On April 29, 2013,
the remains were turned over to the daughter of the only identified victim and a survivor of the massacre. In
the course of the procedure, agents of the prosecutor's office proceeded to carry out a field investigation, taking
photographs and videos, as well as making a planimetric diagram of the scene, the report for which was
presented on May 23, 2013.134 In November 2013, a former army soldier gave a statement from the detention
center where he was being held; however, there is no record of that statement in the case file.135
47.
On September 8, 2014, the Human Rights Prosecutor's Office, Agency One of the Internal Armed
Conflict Special Cases Unit, forwarded information on the case pending before Criminal Court of First Instance
B for High-Risk Cases in and for Guatemala Department, for crimes of murder and crimes against humanity to
the detriment of the residents of the village of Los Josefinos on April 29, 1982.136 That document describes the
following investigative procedures conducted in the case: the work of the Forensic Anthropology Foundation
of Guatemala, the presentation of the skeletons to the victims' relatives, and the "identification of possible
witnesses to these events, who is [sic] being located with a view to being interviewed.”137
48.
After 23 years since the investigation began and almost 37 years since the massacre itself, the
information available suggests that the Guatemalan authorities have not concluded the investigation.
E.
Reparations awarded
Annex 05, Criminal case file C-805-96, Volume II, pp. 432-534 (verso).
Annex 12, Center for Justice and International Law, Information on the risk to the prosecutors in charge of the investigations into the
massacre of Los Josefinos Village (No. 1139-04), November 18, 2010.
126 Annex 05, Criminal case file C-805-96, pp. 316-317.
127 Annex 05, Criminal case file C-805-96, pp. 318-321.
128 Annex 05, Criminal case file C-805-96, pp. 324-331 (verso).
129 Annex 05, Criminal case file C-805-96, pp. 1006-1048.
130 Annex 05, Criminal case file C-805-96, pp. 411-430.
131 Annex 05, Criminal case file C-805-96, pp. 1072-1072 (verso).
132 Annex 05, Criminal case file C-805-96, p. 100.
133 Annex 05, Criminal case file C-805-96, pp. 1049-1054.
134 Annex 05, Criminal case file C-805-96, pp. 1065-1092.
135 Annex 05, Criminal case file C-805-96, p. 1074.
136 Letter of September 8, 2014, from the Human Rights Prosecutor's Office, Agency One of the Internal Armed Conflict Special Cases Unit
to the Secretariat for Private and Strategic Matters of the Public Prosecution Service, appended to the observations of the State of Guatemala
in relation to the information provided by the petitioners in a brief dated September 5, 2013, and Position of the State regarding the
Observations on Admissibility, P-1139-04, Los Josefinos Massacre, September 3, 2014 (hereinafter "Letter of September 8, 2014, Human
Rights Prosecutor's Office”).
137 Letter of September 8, 2014, Human Rights Prosecutor's Office.
124
125
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