18. The petitioner affirms that the conversation was recorded without his knowledge, and that the conversation with the other defendant referred to the purchase of a recreational boat, for which the petitioner was acting as an intermediary. 19. The Sixth Oral Tribunal of the Federal Criminal Court of Buenos Aires, after reviewing the evidence submitted by the Public Prosecutor,1 ruled that the contents of the recorded conversation contained on cassette 40 and the transcription thereof at page 1099 of the judicial file did not coincide. According to the petitioner's defense, in order to induce the court to convict him for participation in a drug trafficking operation with Spain, the transcription of the recorded conversation had been doctored to include a reference by Jenkins and his codefendant Martinez to a trip to Panama to complete a drug deal, when in reality the participants in that conversation had spoken of a trip abroad to complete the sale of a recreational boat. That evidence had led to the order of preventive detention and the filing of criminal charges against Mr. Jenkins. 20. Once this irregularity was detected, the Sixth Oral Tribunal of the Federal Criminal Court of Buenos Aires ordered the petitioner's immediate release, which took place on November 13, 1997. The petitioner stresses that he had spent three years and five months in prison on the basis of this one piece of evidence against him, which was clearly false. 21. In its judgment of December 23, 1997, the court accepted the request of the trial prosecutor and of the petitioner's defense, and, because the evidence against Jenkins had been affected by falsification (falsedad ideologica), it acquitted the petitioner and ordered the Prosecutor General, the National Federal Criminal and Correctional Chamber, and a Federal Criminal Court to initiate investigations into the possible commission of a public offense, consisting of the submission of falsified evidence in a criminal trial.2 1 It must be mentioned that this review and the subsequent referral of the case for investigation of the possible crime of falsification were undertaken at the request of Dr. Marcelo Buigo, the petitioner's defense attorney. That request was submitted at the beginning of the trial in September of 1997. On this point, see pages 160 and 317 of the judgment issued by the Sixth Oral Tribunal of the Federal Criminal Court of Buenos Aires under the case "Padilla Echeverry, José Gilbardo and others s/inf Law No. 23.737," submitted by the petitioner as an annex to his communication of April 20, 1998. 2 See pages 159, 406 and 418 of the judgment issued by the Oral Tribunal, supra. 4