-36Mr. Díaz Romero and testified that all the vehicles traveling in either direction were intercepted at this roadblock and that it was the only road accessible to vehicles of the size of the trucks. Mariano Martínez made the same affirmation, and also several witnesses who made statements before notary public, such as Benildo José Ricardo Herrera and Leovigilda Villalba. 84. However, over and above whether the alternate routes between Pueblo Bello and San Pedro de Urabá, by which the trucks could have evaded the military roadblock, were drivable, the principal probative element to support the premise that the soldiers allowed the trucks to pass through the roadblock and the military base is the statement of the former member of the paramilitary group, Rogelio de Jesús Escobar Mejía, who confessed that he had taken part in the events as a member of the “tangueros” group and who was indicted in the criminal proceedings in the ordinary jurisdiction. According to this statement: We identified ourselves with red and pink scarves. The people were gagged so that when we drove through San Pedro no one could make any noise. There is an Army base about 20 minutes on foot from Pueblo Bello and beyond it the Army roadblock. Fernando, alias “Noventa,” emerged from the Army base, and also an Army lieutenant and two other soldiers; according to the lieutenant, they were a corporal and a soldier. The lieutenant got into the cabin of the first vehicle; the corporal climbed onto one running board and the soldier onto the other. I was on the front part of the truck’s chassis and the lieutenant asked me how many people we had in that vehicle. I did not answer him. The lieutenant took us through the roadblock which was about 15 or 20 minutes from the base. When the lieutenant dismounted, he told the driver and Fernando, alias “Noventa,” that, from there on, there would be no problem. When we passed by the Army base, the lieutenant made the truck detour to the south so that it did not pass through a small village called San Vicente del Congo; he told the driver which way to go. When we passed by the village, the soldier who was on the running board of the truck raised his arm and saluted a soldier who was in one of the streets of the village. The truck did not stop at the roadblock at the entrance to San Pedro. When we were in the center of San Pedro, the lieutenant and the other men in uniform dismounted and Fernando had to get out to vomit because he was drunk on “aguardiente.” When the lieutenant got out he told me to fasten down the tarpaulin of the truck so that no one in San Pedro would be able to see anything. From the outset, Fidel Castaño told us that we would not have any problem with the Army because everything had been arranged.18 85. The State alleged that the testimony of Rogelio de Jesús Escobar Mejía “did not have the necessary probative value to accuse the soldiers of the facts and, consequently, destroy the presumption of their innocence.” In this regard, the State indicated in its final written arguments that: […] In this proceeding before the Court, reference has been made over and over again to the testimony of ROGELIO DE JESÚS ESCOBAR MEJÍA in order to use it as evidence, without respecting the minimum rules that should govern assessment of the testimony of one of the accused in criminal proceedings. Since this is key testimony in the proceedings to attribute responsibility to an individual agent – an obligatory requirement for attributing international responsibility to the State - we will examine it below in order to prove that it has no probative value as regards attribution of responsibility to the soldiers. We wish to make it very clear that this testimony is not, and can never be considered indivisible. Undoubtedly some parts of his statement have probative value; however, it has no credibility with regard to the intervention of the soldiers, by act or omission, in the actions of the members of the illegal armed group […] The testimony of ROGELIO DE JESÚS ESCOBAR MEJÍA cannot be considered grounds for a judgment by the Court against the State, because its content has not been proved. The only way that the content of this statement could have been taken into consideration as 18 Cf. statement made by Rogelio de Jesús Escobar Mejía before the DAS on April 25, 1990 (file of useful evidence submitted by the State, folio 4549).