104 National Police, as I mentioned, including the murder of one of the investigators. other words, in concrete terms, I felt fear, I was afraid of what was happening. In […] Aside from this, there were also the pressures of my family, who felt threatened, and I decided to leave Guatemala, with all the consequences that come with exile. 186. Regarding the above, Helen Mack Chang stated, in her testimony before the Court, that “all the witnesses had to go into exile, all of them. And the judges who heard the case were also threatened […]. Subsequently an assistant, a legal operator, also had to go into exile.” (supra para. 127.d). 187. It has likewise been proven that two police investigators, José Mérida Escobar and Julio Pérez Ixcajop – who prepared the September 29, 1990 police report, in which they reached the conclusion that the motive of the murder of Myrna Mack Chang was political, and they identified a member of the Presidential General Staff as a suspect– suffered a series of acts of harassment and threats for having conducted the investigation of the case (supra paras. 127.e, 134.95 to 134.98). 188. It has also been deemed proven that police investigator José Mérida Escobar was murdered after having ratified before the courts the police report issued on September 29, 1990. The facts pertaining to his death have not yet been effectively investigated (supra para. 127.e). 189. It has furthermore been deemed proven that police investigator Julio Pérez Ixcajop, who also participated in the preparation of the aforementioned report, in face of the murder of his work colleague and the threats he was receiving, had to leave Guatemala to avoid similar facts happening to him (supra para. 134.97). 190. In connection with the above, Rember Larios Tobar, then the Head of the Criminological Investigations Department of the National Police of Guatemala, in his testimony before the Court, stated that José Mérida Escobar repeatedly “told me that he was under surveillance and being persecuted due to the investigation and I asked him to record that surveillance and he did [...]. However, after November 29 his life changed radically, because he began to suffer harassment, threats, surveillance, all types of persecution, and he constantly informed me of them.” Specifically, he recalled that before rendering his statements before the courts, José Mérida Escobar told him “that he was afraid because he was still being watched and threatened,” but “as this was one of his qualities, that strength of personality, he went to the court and told the truth about what he knew of the Myrna Mack Chang case, and several weeks after he testified, he was murdered” (supra para. 127.e). 191. It has likewise been deemed proven that Rember Larios Tobar, who was also offered as a witness in the criminal proceeding, began to receive threats, a situation that led him to leave Guatemala and go to Canada; in this regard, in his testimony before the Court, he stated that “just like what happened to investigator Mérida after September 29, 1990, I began to suffer harassment” (supra para. 127.e) and he specifically said that: [b]efore my statement in the Myrna Mack case, which I rendered on December 13, 1991, and afterwards, I have suffered death threats and attempts against my life. In February, 1992, I was called by the police directorate to rejoin the police and I was then appointed head of the police in an area that was conflictive at the time. My life was in danger and I also suffered all types of harassment and death threats and I recall that in June of that year, 1992, I was ordered by the director of the police to conduct an