REPORT
Nº 11/93
CASE 10.528
PERU
March 12, 1993
BACKGROUND:
1.
That the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
received the following petition, dated March 22, 1990:
We have the honor to address the Inter-American
Commission to request that you urgently intercede with the
Peruvian authorities concerning the arrest-disappearance of
Peruvian citizen Falconieri Saravia Castillo, based on the
following facts from information provided by the National
Agrarian Confederation [Confederación Nacional Agraria] (CNA)
by the victim's own next-of-kin:
1.
On March 16, 1990, in the city of Huancavelica in the
province and department of that same name, Falconieri Saravia
Castillo (age 45), married to Mrs. Mauricia Quinto and father
of seven (two of them small children), artisan and farmer,
President of the Huancavelica Agrarian Federation, a municipal
agent for the community of Santa Barbara and a member of the
United Left, went to his community's Assembly Hall on the
outskirts of the city of Huancavelica.
2.
As he was on route to the assembly, according to
information provided by his son, Saravia Castillo was detained
at 17:00 hours by a military man in civilian dress, who
identified himself with his identification card.
The military man was armed.
3.
One of Saravia Castillo's sons, who was following his
father some distance behind, saw the military man known
as "el ruso" (the Russian) take his father
away, in the direction of the office of the Political Military
Command, located at Jr. Victoria Garma in the city of
Huancavelica.
4.
His relatives went that evening (18:30 hours) to the
office of the Political-Military Command, and again the next
day (March 17) and on Monday March 19, but were told
repeatedly that no arrest was ever made.
5.
Even Mrs. Mauricia Quinto de Saravia filed a writ with
the Office of the Provincial Prosecutor of Huancavelica, which
was received on the morning of March 19 but returned,
unprocessed, that same afternoon.
The Office of the Provincial Prosecutor of Huancavelica,
held by Dr. Humberto Pareja, has thus committed a serious
crime.
6.
Despite the time that has passed, the personal
whereabouts of citizen Falconieri Saravia Castillo are still
unknown.
7.
We are requesting your urgent intervention with the
Peruvian authorities to safeguard the fundamental rights of
citizen Falconieri Saravia Castillo, who is
detained-disappeared.
2.
That attached to the petition were copies of the
telegrams sent to the Examining Judge of Huancavelica, to the
Chief Prosecutor of Huancavelica, and to Peruvian Army Colonel
Luis Paz Cárdenas, Chief of the Huancavelica Political Military
Command. There is also a copy of the delivery receipt for the
request sent to Peruvian Army General Julio Velasquez Giacarini,
Minister of Defense at the time; a copy of the receipt for the
complaint filed with Dr. Manuel Catacora Gonzáles, Attorney
General of the Nation, and, finally, the testimony of one of the
victim's sons, who saw his father being led away and brought to
the headquarters of the Huancavelica Political Military Command.
The Commission has that document in its possession;
3.
That in a note dated March 22, 1990, the Commission began
its processing of the case and requested from the Government of
Peru the relevant information on the facts reported in that
communication, and any other information that would enable it to
determine whether the remedies under domestic law had been
exhausted in the instant case;
4.
That on May 2, 1990, the Inter-American Commission on
Human Rights again requested from the Government of Peru
information on the investigations conducted into the instant
case, and set a 90-day deadline for the government to reply;
5.
That the Commission received additional information from
the petitioner dated May 9, 1990, as follows:
We write to you at this time to inform you that according
to reports we have received, citizen Falconieri Saravia Castillo
has been executed by members of the Peruvian Army.
The circumstances were as follows:
1.
On March 16, 1990, Falconieri Saravia Castillo was
detained, according to the account provided by his son, while on
route to a meeting. The
arresting officer was a military man in civilian dress, who
identified himself. The
military man was armed.
2.
Mr. Saravia's son saw the military man, who is called
"Ruso" ("Russian"), take his father to the
headquarters of Huancavelica's Political Military Command,
located at Jr. Victoria Garma.
3.
Everything seems to indicate that before Falconieri
Saravia's arrest, there was a "terrorism" complaint
filed by a neighboring community.
This spurred the military into action.
The autopsy report prepared by Medical Examiner Pedro
García apparently contains certain errors and raises certain
questions. As the
cause of death it cites internal hemorrhaging caused by a
medium-calibre firearm; but
apparently the internal bleeding was caused by bullets from a
Peruvian Army FAL (light automatic weapon);
what the autopsy report describes as perhaps a bullet
wound, is a slash beside the left eye, a slash across the throat
and a slash to the back of the neck.
- The body has 10 bullet orifices.
It is unclear whether these were five entry and five exit
wounds. There were
bullet wounds to the heart, and perforations in the liver,
intestine and the left kidney.
- The body showed signs of torture on the genitals and
had contusions on the right hand and the marks left by lashes
around the wrists, hematomas on the lower members and blisters
on the feet from being forced to walk barefoot.
- This information has been supplied to a member of the
National Executive Committee of the National Coordinator of
Human Rights in a personal interview held at the scene of the
events (Huancavelica). Given the situation, the physician refused to turn over the
Autopsy Certificate.
4. The
criminal indictment has not yet been handed down; because the
Technical Police are conducting certain preliminary
investigations, the case has not yet been turned over to the
Judge.
6.
That in a note dated May 14, 1990, the Commission
forwarded this communication to the Government of Peru, asking
that it provide the Commission with information within a period
of 60 days;
7.
That on March 18, 1991, the Commission reiterated its
request that the Government of Peru provide information on the
investigations conducted into the instant case, and also warned
that should the requested information not be received within 30
days, it would consider application of Article 42 of the
Commission's Regulations, whereby the facts recounted in the
complaint would be presumed to be true as long as other evidence
does not lead to another conclusion;
8.
That since no reply was received and the established
legal deadline had long since expired, on August 9, 1991, the
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights sent the Government of
Peru yet another communication, again asking that it supply
information within 30 days, warning of the application of
Article 42 of its Regulations and providing it with yet more
information supplied by the petitioner (Appendix VI);
9.
That on September 24, 1992, when the deadlines had
already passed, the Government of Peru replied that the
investigations were being conducted to "identify those
responsible for the murder" (of Falconieri Saravia
Castillo) and mentioned that orders had been given to conduct a
ballistics test and to identify the military in civilian dress
who had detained the victim.
10. At
its 82 session, the Commission adopted Report No. 22/92, which
was referred to the Government of Perú so that the latter might
make whatever observations it deemed pertinent within three
months of the date of transmission.
ANALYSIS:
1.
That under Article 44 of the American Convention on Human
Rights, of which Peru is a State Party, the Commission is
competent to hear the instant case inasmuch as it involves
violations of rights recognized in that Convention -Article 4 on
the right to life, Article 5 on the right to humane treatment,
Article 7 on the right to personal liberty and Article 25 on the
right to judicial protection;
2.
That the petition satisfies the formal requirements for
admissibility contained in the American Convention on Human
Rights and in the Commission's Regulations;
3.
That the petition is neither pending settlement in
another procedure under an international governmental
organization nor a duplication of a petition already examined by
the Commission;
4.
That the facts in this case, taken from the testimony and
from the various complaints filed with competent organs, are as
follows:
a) On March
16, 1990, at 17:00 hours, Falconieri Saravia Castillo was
detained by a military man known as "Ruso"
[Russian] and taken to the headquarters of the
Huancavelica Political Military Command;
b) The
military man in question was in civilian dress, wearing a black
shirt, white pants, shoes and a black knit scarf around his
neck;
c) The
military man identified himself and, at gun-point, led Saravia
away from the vicinity of the Santa Barbara Housing Project,
taking him via various city streets, in the presence of
witnesses who saw him pass by;
d) The day
of the arrest, Saturday the 17th, and again on Monday the 19th,
the victim's relatives went to the military base to inquire
about his situation and were told that Falconieri Saravia was
not being held in custody.
e) The
victim's body turned up on April 1, 1990, and bore visible signs
of torture;
5.
That the following documents attached to this report
prove that the remedies under domestic law have been attempted
and have failed to ensure the victim's exercise of his rights:
a) A
petition filed by the victim's next-of-kin with the Office of
the Provincial Prosecutor, received at 10:15 a.m. on March 19,
but returned that afternoon, claiming that the next-of-kin had
to see the Judge. The
relatives put into writing the fact that the Provincial
Prosecutor, Dr. Humberto Pareja, was guilty of an egregious
omission by abandoning a person at risk of death, since the
worst was feared if the courts did not act quickly (Appendix
II);
b) On March
21, the corresponding petition was presented to the Examining
Judge of Huancavelica, asking that the abduction, detention
incommunicado and denial of Falconieri Saravia Castillo's right
to self-defense cease (Appendix I);
c) A similar letter was sent to the Chief of
Huancavelica's Political Military Command on March 21 (Appendix
III), to the Minister of Defense, dated March 22 (Appendix IV),
and to the Attorney General of the Nation, also dated March 22
(Appendix V);
d) At the request of Eulogio Saravia Quinto, son of
Falconieri Saravia Castillo, on June 25, 1990, the Ministry of
Defense reported the following:
1. The
investigations having been conducted, the Commander General of
the 4th Front has determined that citizen Saravia Castillo
Falconieri was not detained either by Army troops or by the
National Police.
2. He
further advised that the Departmental Headquarters of the
Technical Police in Huancavelica had reported, through
Communication No. 066-IC-JDP, dated April 5, 1990, that the
citizen in question had been found dead on April 1, 1990, on the
Supaymayo-Lachocc bridge and that thus far the author or authors
of the crime against the life of this citizen had not been
identified, located and taken into custody.
3. Moreover,
despite repeated notifications, the next-of-kin of the
individual in question had not appeared at the Departmental
Headquarters of the Technical Police in Huancavelica; they could
have supplied additional information on the fact denounced, to
shed light on the reason for his death; the investigations were,
nonetheless, continuing.
e) In this
regard, the petitioner stated the following:
As for the case of Mr. Falconieri Saravia Castillo, we
should inform you that the victim's next-of-kin no longer press
to have justice done in Peru, because of the fear and sense of
insecurity in the city of Huancavelica.
We attach a copy of the Death Certificate of Falconieri
Saravia Castillo, which confirms that he died a violent death by
the allusion to the "Forensic Medical Certificate because
of the autopsy done on the body."
We also enclose a copy of the replies received from the
Office of the Army Inspector General and from the Ministry of
Defense, in response to information requests filed by Eulogio
Saravia Quinto, son of Falconieri Saravia Castillo.
6.
That the official documents discussed in the preceding
section provide sufficient information for the competent
Peruvian jurisdictional and political-military authorities to
have taken action to clarify the situation denounced and restore
Mr. Falconieri Saravia's violated rights, especially when one
considers how quickly the remedies under domestic law were filed
and how promptly the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
acted upon the complaint.
7.
That the Inter-American Court of Human Rights stated the
following:
The State is obligated to investigate every situation
involving a violation of the rights protected by the Convention.
If the State apparatus acts in such a way that the
violation goes unpunished and the victim's full enjoyment of
such rights is not restored as soon as possible, the State has
failed to comply with its duty to ensure the free and full
exercise of those rights to the persons within its jurisdiction.
8.
That the Government's reply to the petition is
insufficient, and simply notes that the victim was not arrested
either by Army troops or by the National Police, which shows
that the Peruvian authorities have not taken steps to
investigate the complaint diligently and with the seriousness
that the case demands.
9.
That the Inter-American Court stated the following with
regard to the duty to investigate the situations denounced:
[The duty to investigate]...must be undertaken in a
serious manner and not as a mere formality preordained to be
ineffective. An
investigation must have an objective and be assumed by the State
as its own legal duty, not as a step taken by private interests
that depends upon the initiative of the victim or his family or
upon their offer of proof, without an effective search for the
truth by the government.
10.
That the reply received from the Government of Peru,
dated September 24, 1992, reporting that measures were being
taken to shed light on the facts in this case, fails to provide
any information pertinent to the serious issue of the death and
disappearance of Falconieri Saravia Castillo.
11.
That since the friendly settlement procedure provided for
in Article 48 paragraph 1.f of the American Convention on Human
Rights is not applicable owing to the nature of the facts
denounced and the absence of any reply from the Government, the
Commission must carry out the provisions of Article 50 paragraph
1 of the Convention and issue its conclusions and
recommendations on the petition submitted to it for
consideration,
12.
That on October 26, 1992 the Government of Perú
presented its observations on Report 22/92 which indicated that
in spite of investigations conducted had failed to identify or
arrest the murderer or murderers of Mr. Falconieri Saravia
Castillo.
THE
INTER-AMERICAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS,
CONCLUDES:
1. To
declare that the Government of Peru is responsible for violation
of the rights to life, to humane treatment, to personal liberty
and to judicial protection, upheld in articles 4, 5, 7 and 25 of
the American Convention on Human Rights, as a result of acts of
agents of the peruvian State, who effected an illegal arrest,
tortured and extrajudicially executed Falconieri Saravia
Castillo, in the Department of Huancavelica on March 22, 1990.
2. To
declare that the Government of Peru has failed to comply with
the obligations to respect the human rights and guarantees,
imposed through Article 1 of the American Convention on Human
Rights of which Peru is a State Party.
3. To
recommend to the Government of Peru that it pay fair
compensation to the victim's next-of-kin.
4. To
recommend to the Government of Peru that it conduct an
exhaustive investigation into the facts denounced, to clarify
the circumstances and identify those responsible for the murder
of Falconieri Saravia Castillo, and that they be brought to
justice.
5. To
request the Government of Peru to adopt effective security
measures to protect the lives and safety of the eye-witnesses to
the events and the relatives of the victim.
6. To
publish this report in the Annual Report to the General
Assembly, pursuant to Article 48 of the Commission's Regulations
and Article 53.1 of the Convention, inasmuch as the Government
of Perú did not adopt measures to correct the situation
denounced, within the time period stipulated in Report No.
22/92.
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