Commission’s Merits Report, and in the briefs with motions, arguments and evidence of the
representatives of the presumed victims,” and did not present arguments to contest the alleged
violation of Article 7 of the Convention. In its final written arguments, the State referred to
Chile’s criminal procedural law which regulates pre-trial detention, without referring to the
specific cases of the presumed victims. In addition, the State did not raise any objection related
to the expert evidence proposed by the common interveners the purpose of which included the
issue of pre-trial detention.42
43.
A particularity of this case is that, in the Merits Report, the Inter-American Commission
decided the four petitions included in the case submitted to the Court jointly and, therefore, in
the said report, it included a brief description of the criminal proceedings against the eight
presumed victims. This description was completed by the common interveners in more detail.
In the Court’s opinion, the facts described by the common interveners in their motions and
arguments briefs regarding the pre-trial detention measures to which the presumed victims
were subject constitute facts that complement and provide details in relation to the factual
determinations included in the Merits Report, insofar as the pre-trial detentions were ordered
within the framework of the criminal proceedings against the presumed victims described by the
Inter-American Commission. Consequently, these facts will be considered part of the factual
framework, and the Court will examine them in relation to the eight presumed victims taking
into account the documentary evidence in the three domestic criminal case files.
2.
The initial arrests and their judicial control
44.
The statements made by presumed victims Florencio Jaime Marileo Saravia and Víctor
Manuel Ancalaf Llaupe during the public hearing in this case include affirmations concerning the
facts relating to the legality of the initial arrests of some of the presumed victims and the time
that elapsed between these arrests and the respective judicial control.
45.
The Merits Report made no mention of these factual aspects, and neither the
Commission nor the common interveners presented specific arguments in relation to the legality
of the initial arrest. Moreover, it should be stressed that, even though the initial arrests were
ordered in the context of the investigations that formed part of the criminal proceedings in this
case, in order to analyze whether violations of the rights recognized in Articles 7(2) and 7(4) of
the Convention were possibly constituted, it would be necessary to examine compliance with
the formal requirements and the Court was not provided with sufficient probative elements in
this regard to make this analysis. Consequently, these facts are not part of the factual
framework of this case and the Court will not rule on them.
3.
Allegations of violence during the initial arrests and inhumane detention
conditions
46.
Some of the arguments of the common interveners concerning the alleged violation of
Article 5 of the Convention refer to supposed facts relating to the “arrest [of the presumed
victims] during vast police operations” and to the supposed “violent raids on the communities,”
as well as to the supposed “violent way” in which the “first arrest [of Víctor Manuel Ancalaf
Llaupe] was made by the Chilean Police Force (Carabineros de Chile).” In addition, in its
arguments on the alleged violation of this article, CEJIL included general facts concerning the
“inhumane detention conditions to which the persons […] kept” in the El Manzano Prison, where
42
Cf. Affidavit prepared on May 17, 2013, by expert witness Claudio Alejandro Fierro Morales on: “the [alleged]
impairment of due process of law and the judicial guarantees of the persons prosecuted under the regime regulated in the
Counter-terrorism Act; the characteristics of the former criminal procedure system, and the compatibility of the said legal
frameworks with the relevant international standards,” and Affidavit prepared on May 15, 2013, by expert witness Mauricio
Alfredo Duce Julio on “the scope of the constitutional and legal rules concerning pre-trial detention in Chile and their use in
the practice by the courts of justice. In particular, [he referred to] the legal ground of ‘danger to the security of society’” (file
of statements of the presumed victims, witnesses and expert witnesses, folios 3 and 37 to 80).
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