d) No shell casing were found that could have allowed it to be proved that, as the State argued, all the victims had fired their weapons first against the police detail;44 e) No law enforcement agents were injured during these two alleged “confrontations,” even though, according to the State, the three victims had the advantage of the element of surprise, since they had fired first,45 and f) The seven gunshots that wounded the three victims were concentrated on their thorax or, more generally, on their “bodies” and none of them were shot on their extremities or other parts of the body that would have had less lethal results, and that would be more consistent with the location of injuries more typical of confrontations in which the wounds are mainly situated in the “extremities of the body.”46 31. Hence, when analyzing the evidence related to the facts of the case, the InterAmerican Court noted that there were a series of “contradictions” and “inconsistencies” in the State’s version of the facts related to the existence of “confrontations.”47 32. The Inter-American Court also noted that the domestic authorities had not analyzed or fully investigated the hypothesis of extrajudicial execution. In particular, the IACtHR indicated that the authorities did not take measures that would have been decisive to confirm or reject the line of investigation regarding the confrontation, such as taking fingerprints from the firearms or cartridges or testing for gunpowder residue on hands to prove that the weapons were effectively fired by the direct alleged victims in this case. Also, no ballistic tests were performed to prove that the bullets collected from the police patrol vehicles came from the firearms seized. It should be added that no record of the ownership of the firearms found at the scene of the incidents was presented, nor a forensic appraisal of the bullets that shot the alleged victims.48 33. The Inter-American Court noted that such appraisals that were not conducted, and probative elements that were not submitted could have provided better evidence of great importance to verify one or other hypothesis of what happened. Therefore, it was not reasonable to consider that the absence of such decisive investigation procedures – procedures that the Venezuela authorities should have undertaken and that did not depend on a request by the family members of those who died – could prove a hypothesis of the facts that would be unfavorable to the alleged victims, especially in the case of evidence that could have been decisive to prove that the events constituted executions rather than confrontations.49 34. In light of the foregoing, the undersigned consider that the explanations provided by the State to consider that these events did not form part of a context of extrajudicial executions is fairly unconvincing. Indeed, the State limited its arguments to considerations on matters relating to the fourth instance, 50 argued that not all the Cf. Case of Díaz Loreto et al. v. Venezuela. Preliminary objections, merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of November 19, 2019, para. 80. 44 Cf. Case of Díaz Loreto et al. v. Venezuela. Preliminary objections, merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of November 19, 2019, para. 84. 45 Cf. Case of Díaz Loreto et al. v. Venezuela. Preliminary objections, merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of November 19, 2019, para. 83. 46 Case of Díaz Loreto et al. v. Venezuela. Preliminary objections, merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of November 19, 2019, para. 87. 47 Cf. Case of Díaz Loreto et al. v. Venezuela. Preliminary objections, merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of November 19, 2019, para. 86. 48 Cf. Case of Díaz Loreto et al. v. Venezuela. Preliminary objections, merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of November 19, 2019, para. 86. 49 Cf. Case of Díaz Loreto et al. v. Venezuela. Preliminary objections, merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of November 19, 2019, para. 14. 50 9