50 o. Testimony of Julio Alberto Soto Bilbao, Infantry Colonel in the Guatemalan Army From January 1 to September 31, 1992, he was on active service in Military Zone No. 18, carrying out duties as operations and training officer for this military Zone, which was under the command of Colonel Harry Ponce Ramírez. He did not remember capturing any combatant, but rather having dealt with guerrillas injured in combat. The Guatemalan Army's policy during the conflict was “to give first aid to the [injured] person, transfer him to the command post [and] evaluate his health”; after this, they decided if he should be hospitalized. Then, they proposed to the guerrilla that he should voluntarily claim amnesty, which was processed in the magistrate's courts “and often in the presence of the press”. He did not know whether the Army kept former guerrillas as informers or “the procedure followed to obtain information from former guerrillas.” He did not remember any other former guerrilla who might have been working in Military Zone No. 18. However, he was aware of “various former guerrillas who had presented themselves voluntarily to different military commands, claimed amnesty and, for their own personal safety, remained working with the institution”. He did not work with any of them, because they worked with “military intelligence.” He received intelligence information from the intelligence officer on how and where guerrilla detachments were located. He was at the Santa Ana Berlín detachment in March 1992 and took part in the Quetzal Task Force, commanded by Colonel Ismael Segura Abularach, which “responded to an ORPA attack”, specifically by the Luis Ixmatá Front. His tasks were those of an operations officer, carrying out “purely tactical and operational aspects”, and executing functions such as overseeing the organization and training of the units before they went into combat. He did not take part in the encounter between the Quetzal Task Force and the Luis Ixmatá Front on March 12, 1992, and did not know whether Bámaca Velásquez was captured, as a result of that encounter. He did not know the military commander of the Luis Ixmatá Front, Efraín Bámaca Velásquez, although he did know who he was, because “it has been extensively published in the press.” Although he was at the Santa Ana Berlín detachment in March 1992, he knew nothing about the alleged tortures inflicted on Bámaca Velásquez, and he denied having been one of the persons who took part in them in Military Zone No. 18, in July 1992. He was posted to Military Zone No. 18 in June 1992, and, in July the same year, he was posted to the same Zone, but at the “El Porvenir” property. Santiago Cabrera López could not have left Santa Ana Berlín to go on leave from March 7 to 12, 1992, because the person who authorized that leave was Colonel Harry Ponce Ramírez, Commander of Military Zone No. 18, and a commander cannot authorize leave for a person on active service at another military base. Therefore, if it was Colonel Ponce Ramírez who signed his leave, Cabrera “had to have departed from [Military Zone No. 18] and returned to the same place.”