35 VIII VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 7 OF THE AMERICAN CONVENTION IN RELATION WITH ARTICLE 1(1) OF THE SAME (Right to Personal Liberty and Obligation to Respect Rights) 55. Arguments of the Commission a) Regarding the characteristics of the arrest: i) Mr. López Álvarez was arrested by State agents on April 27, 1997 without an arrest warrant issued by a competent authority. The State has not proven that it was an infragranti arrest; the agents in charge of the detention were looking for people with physical characteristics different to those of Mr. López Álvarez and his participation in the acts he was charged with have not been proven. There is evidence that allows us to consider that the detainment of Mr. López Álvarez was carried out with the objective of inhibiting him from his participation as defender of the community lands of his people, and from the criminal procedure followed against the alleged victim we can conclude that the courts of justice did not investigate the possibility that public power could have been used for purposes different to those established in the legal system, through acts endowed of legal appearance, that seeked to deprive Mr. López Álvarez of his personal liberty, and ii) No field tests were performed on the alleged drugs seized when the arrest was made. Both the officers of the Office of the Public Prosecutor and the judge that ordered the preliminary criminal proceedings prejudged the nature of said substance. b) Regarding the preventive detention i) In reason of that stated in the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedures in their Articles 425 and 433, respectively, and of the application of the same, Mr. López Álvarez was excluded of the benefit of being released on bail, and ii) the lower court acquitted Mr. López Álvarez on January 13, 2003, and the judgment was confirmed on May 29th of the same year, despite which the alleged victim remained imprisoned until August 26, 2003. 56. Arguments of the representatives a) Regarding the characteristics of the arrest i) the objective of the arrest of Mr. López Álvarez was to involve him in a crime he did not commit and coerce him into declaring himself guilty of the facts he was charged with, and López-Álvarez to CEJIL, OFRANEH, and Mr. Nelson Martín Reyes Morales (dossier of appendixes to the brief of petitions and motions, appendix 1, folio 3).