19 110. The Government objected, under Article 37 of the Rules of Procedure, to the testimony of Zenaida Velásquez because, as sister of the victim, she was a party interested in the outcome of the case. 111. The Court unanimously rejected the objection because it considered the fact that the witness was the victim's sister to be insufficient to disqualify her. The Court reserved the right to consider her testimony. 112. The Government asserted that her testimony was irrelevant because it did not refer to the case before the Court and that what she related about the kidnapping of her brother was not her personal knowledge but rather hearsay. 113. The former member of the Armed Forces who claimed to have belonged to the group that carried out kidnappings told the Court that, although the did not take part in the kidnapping of Manfredo Velásquez, Lt. Flores Murillo had told him what had happened. According to this testimony, Manfredo Velásquez was kidnapped in downtown Tegucigalpa in an operation in which Sgt. José Isaías Vilorio, men using the pseudonyms Ezequiel and Titanio, and Lt. Flores Murillo himself, took part. The Lieutenant told him that during the struggle Ezequiel's gun went off and wounded Manfredo in the leg. They took the victim to INDUMIL (Military Industries) where they tortured him. They then turned him over the those in charge of carrying out executions who, at the orders of General Alvarez, Chief of the Armed Forces, took him out of Tegucigalpa and killed him with a knife and machete. They dismembered his body and buried the remains in different places (testimony of Florencio Caballero). 114. The current Director of Intelligence testified that José Isaías Vilorio was a file clerk of the DNI. He said he did not know Lt. Flores Murillo and stated that INDUMIL had never been used as a detention center (testimony of Roberto Núñez Montes). 115. One witness testified that he was taken prisoner on September 29, 1981 by five or six persons who identified themselves as members of the Armed Forces and took him to the officers of DNI. They blindfolded him and took him in a car to an unknown place, where they tortured him. On October 1, 1981, while he was being held, he heard a moaning and pained voice through a hole in the door to an adjoining room. The person identified himself as Manfredo Velásquez and asked for help. According to the testimony of the witness, at that moment Lt. Ramón Mejía came in and hit him because he found him standing up, although the witness told the Lieutenant that he had gotten up because he was tired. He added that, subsequently, Sgt. Carlos Alfredo Martínez, whom he had met at the bar where he worked, told him they had turned Manfredo Velásquez over to members of Battalion 316 (testimony of Leopoldo Aguilar Villalobos). 116. The Government asserted that the testimony of this witness "is not completely trustworthy because of discrepancies that should not be overlooked, such as the fact that he had testified that he had only been arrested once, in 1981, for trafficking in arms and hijacking a plane, when the truth was that Honduran police had arrested him on several occasions because of his unenviable record." 117. The Commission also presented evidence to show that from 1981 to 1984 domestic judicial remedies in Honduras were ineffective in protecting human rights, especially the rights of disappeared persons to life, liberty and personal integrity. 118. The Court heard the following testimony with respect to this point: a. The legal procedures of Honduras were ineffective in ascertaining the whereabouts of detainees and ensuring respect for their physical and moral integrity. When writs of habeas corpus were brought, the courts were slow to name judges to execute them and, once named, those judges were often ignored