State violated the right established in Article 7(5) of the American Convention. 119. For its part, the State did not present a specific argument on this point. A.3. Application of the measure of arraigo and the subsequent pretrial detention 120. The Commission and the representatives recalled that at the time of the facts, arraigo (preventive detention) was provided for by the legislation of the State of Mexico, which granted the Public Prosecutor’s Office, in the context of an investigation, the power to detain individuals for a maximum of 60 days for the processing of the inquiry before formally charging them with any crime. They noted that both Daniel García and Reyes Alpízar were held under arraigo for 47 and 34 days, respectively. They also alleged that they were deprived of their liberty based on alleged suspicions and on the presumption that they had committed a serious crime, which does not justify the deprivation of liberty of a person who should be fully protected by the principle of presumption of innocence. Consequently, they concluded that the application of arraigo to the alleged victims was a punitive and not a precautionary measure, in violation of Articles 7(1), 7(3) and 8(2) of the American Convention in relation to Article 1(1) and 2 of the same instrument. 121. With regard to pretrial detention, the Commission and the representatives indicated that the legislation applicable at the time of the facts authorized preventive or pretrial detention for crimes punishable by imprisonment and did not allow provisional release for serious crimes. In this case, the arrest warrants and formal orders of imprisonment were issued based on the type of crime prosecuted and the indications of responsibility. There is no record of a specific analysis of the procedural objectives. They added that when Daniel García was brought before the judge, the latter merely indicated that he was not entitled to request provisional release because the crime of which he was accused was serious. They indicated that in this case the imposition of pretrial detention operated as a form of advance punishment. They also alleged that there is no information to show that, during the more than 17 years that the alleged victims were deprived of their liberty, their detention was periodically reviewed for procedural purposes. 122. Thus, they concluded that the deprivation of liberty of the alleged victims was arbitrary and constituted an advance punishment, and that they did not have access to an effective remedy to analyze its reasonableness, in accordance with procedural objectives. Consequently, they considered that the State violated Articles 7(1), 7(3), 7(5), 7(6), 8(2) and 25 of the American Convention in relation to Articles 1(1) and 2 of the same instrument. 123. The State argued that the petitioners’ arraigo did not reflect the philosophy of ‘detention for investigative purposes’ (detaining to investigate). In particular, it argued that the arraigo of Daniel García and Reyes Alpízar was essentially due to two concurrent factors. On the one hand, it argued that there was sufficient evidence to reasonably assume that they had participated in the crime under investigation and, on the other hand, there were facts and information that led to the presumption of a procedural risk. The State also emphasized that the appeals filed since 2011 to request the substitution of the custodial measure had culminated with the release of the defendants in 2019. 124. Regarding the preventive detention, the State argued that it began with the execution of the arrest warrants for the crime of homicide and that the laws of criminal procedure in force at the time of the facts required the imposition of pretrial detention, without allowing provisional release under any precautionary measure. The State added that at the time of the facts there was no alternative precautionary measure to prevent the risk of flight and threats against the family of Mayor María de los Ángeles Tamés Pérez. Likewise, it considered that, although the pretrial detention imposed on both defendants was carried out in accordance with the ex officio procedure, there were reasons that justified its use in the criminal proceedings for the aggravated homicide of Mayor María de los Ángeles Tamés Pérez, for which reason it is not possible to infer that its application in the present case would have been unlawful and, therefore, that the State is responsible for an alleged violation of the right to personal liberty. -33-