47 the time came, of the conviction. The president of the Trial Court did not offer the defendant the possibility to give a new statement with regard to the last facts attributed to him. These omissions deprived the defense of a certainty regarding the facts imputed (Article 8(2)(b) of the Convention) and, therefore, represented an obstacle for an adequate preparation of the defense, in the terms of Article 8(2)(c) of the Convention. 74. The second paragraph of Article 388 of the Guatemalan Code of Criminal Procedures states that “in the conviction, the court may give the act a legal classification different to the one established in the indictment or the order for trial to commence or impose punishments greater or below those requested by the Office of the Public Prosecutor.” This power, attendant to the principle iura novit curia, must be understood and interpreted in harmony with the principle of consistency and the right to a defense. The necessary consistency between the indictment and the possible conviction justifies the suspension of the debate and the new questioning of the defendant, when the factual basis of the indictment wants to be changed. If this occurs irregularly, the right to a defense is damaged, in the measure that the defendant is not able to exercise it with regard to all the facts that will be considered in the judgment. 75. In this sense, the Court observes that, in the judgment of March 6, 1998, the Trial Court did not limit itself to changing the legal classification of the previously imputed acts, but instead it modified the factual basis of the accusation, not observing the principle of consistency. 76. It went from the classification of Aggravated Rape to the classification of Murder. The direction of malice does not coincide in both conditions: in the first, the animus is to have carnal access, from which the death of the passive subject results; in the second, it is to kill, in any of the forms or through any of the means provided by law as an aggravating cause. The Trial Court considered as proven facts included in the indictment: the intentional murder produced by “asphyxia by strangulation” and the possibility of carnal access after the death. It could not be understood that this means a simple change in the legal classification of the crime; instead it implies different acts than those that represent an Aggravated Rape (Article 175 of the Criminal Code). Thus, the factual basis established in the indictment was varied, without Mr. Fermín Ramírez being able to exercise any defense in this regard. This substantial modification brought with it the possibility to impose, as actually occurred, capital punishment. 77. In the mentioned case of Pélissier and Sassi, the European Court of Human Rights declared that the State was responsible for the violation of the right of the applicants to be informed, in a detailed manner, of the indictment as well as their right to dispose of the time and means necessary to prepare their defense (Articles 6(1) and 6(3) subparagraphs (a) and (b) of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Liberties), considering that: […] in using the right which it unquestionably had to recharacterise facts over which it properly had jurisdiction, the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal should have afforded the applicants the possibility of exercising their defence rights on that issue in a practical and effective manner and, in particular, in good time. It finds nothing in the instant case capable of explaining why, for example, the hearing was not adjourned for further argument or, alternatively, the applicants were not requested to submit written observations while the Court of Appeal was in deliberation. On the contrary, the material before the Court indicates that the applicants were given no opportunity to prepare their