-114investigation; (d) determine the cause, method, place and moment of death, as well
any pattern or practice that could have caused the death, and (e) distinguish
between natural death, accidental death, suicide and murder. In addition, the scene
of the crime must be searched exhaustively, autopsies carried out and human
remains examined rigorously by competent professionals using the most appropriate
procedures.233
178. The negligence of the judicial authorities responsible for examining the
circumstances of the massacre by the opportune collection of evidence in situ,
cannot be rectified by the belated probative measures to seek and exhume mortal
remains in the San Antonio cemetery in Montería, and in other places, which the
Prosecutor General’s Office reinitiated as of February 2003; namely, more than 13
years after the events had occurred. The flaws indicated may be classified as serious
failures to comply with the obligation to investigate the facts, because they have
negatively affected an effective or better identification of the bodies that were found
and determination of the whereabouts of 37 of the 43 alleged victims who remain
disappeared.
179. In addition, during the investigation, probative elements were furnished that
indicated or referred to the possible participation of members of the Army; for
example, a report of the Technical Corps of the Judicial Police dated January 29,
1990, the statements of witnesses and, in particular, those of Rogelio de Jesús
Escobar Mejía (supra paras. 95(63), 95(70), 95(78), 65(a) to (d), and 66(a)).
Nevertheless, as has been indicated, there is nothing in the body of evidence to show
that any of the courts have summoned an Army officer to appear, or any reasons
why such an appearance was not ordered subsequently (supra para. 95(85)). The
decisions issued in 1993 by the Medellín Delegate Regional Prosecutor only ordered
preventive detention measures against Fidel Castaño Gil and other alleged members
of the paramilitary group and not against public officials. Even more relevant is the
fact that on February 4, 1994, the Medellín Regional Directorate of the Prosecutor
General’s Office abstained from considering the possible responsibility of members of
the Armed Forces in the facts owing to “the jurisdiction to which they are subject
because they were on active service, especially if they were in the so-called public
order [units] that require permanent active service. The prosecutor has therefore
decided that the criminal responsibility should be determined by an official of the
military justice system” (supra para. 95(97)).
180. As of October 19, 1990, the investigation into Fidel Castaño Gil and others
being conducted by the Fourth Public Order Court was transferred to the First Public
Order Court to be continued in conjunction with the investigation the latter was
conducting into the abduction of Manuel Alfonso Ospina Ospina, because it was
considered that “the different criminal episodes had the same final motivation.” The
Court does not consider that the joinder of the investigations for those facts, which
occurred at very different times and in very different circumstances, helped improve
results with regard to the clarification of the facts.
181. On May 26, 1997, the Medellín Regional Court delivered judgment in first
instance, and convicted six individuals involved in the facts of Pueblo Bello for having
233
Cf. Case of the “Mapiripán Massacre”, supra note 7, para. 224; Case of the Moiwana Community,
supra note 7, para. 149, and Case of Juan Humberto Sánchez, supra note 189, para. 127 and 132.
Likewise, the United Nations Manual on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extralegal, Arbitrary
and Summary Executions, Doc. E/ST/CSDHA/12 (1991).
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