CAT/C/54/D/456/2011 The facts as submitted by the complainants 2.1 On 19 December 1997, Francisco Dionel Guerrero Larez was sentenced to 13 years’ imprisonment for aggravated robbery in the first degree by Trial Court of First Instance No. 24 of the Caracas Metropolitan Area Criminal Court Circuit. He was serving his sentence in the Venezuelan General Penitentiary, located in the city of San Juan de los Morros in the State of Guárico. 2.2 The complainants submit that, at around 9 a.m. on 7 September 2009, Mr. Guerrero Sánchez received a telephone call from his son, Mr. Guerrer o Larez. That same night, he received another telephone call from an unknown person, who informed him that Mr. Guerrero Larez had been murdered in prison. Ms. Hernández Colmenarez heard the news from a relative. 2.3 On 8 September 2009, Mr. Guerrero Sánchez went to the Penitentiary but did not find his son or receive information on his whereabouts. After he had reported the facts to Regional Command No. 2, Unit No. 28, Second Company, San Juan de los Morros Command of the Bolivarian National Guard, the director of the Penitentiary told him that he could not provide information about his son’s fate as the prison population was “out of his control”. Moreover, Major H.N. of the National Guard informed him that some “pranes” 1 (leaders) of the Penitentiary would hand over his son’s body to him the following day. 2.4 Subsequently, having found that Mr. Guerrero Larez was missing, the director of the Penitentiary, in the presence of two prosecutors, informed Mr. Guerrero Sánchez that his son had escaped from the prison. The complainants did not believe him in the light of the information that they had received previously. Moreover, on 9 September 2009, Ms. Hernández Colmenarez also reported the disappearance and probable murder of her husband to the Bolivarian National Guard and alleged that she had received information from other inmates of the Penitentiary to the effect that her husband had been murdered, dismembered and buried within the premises of the Penitentiary. The complainants allege that Mr. Guerrero Larez became a victim of reprisals by a group of inmates who exercised de facto control over the prison because he knew about illegal activities that the group was conducting with the complicity of the National Guard commander responsible for the external security of the prison. 2.5 On 16 or 23 September 2009, the complainants contacted the Venezuelan Prison Observatory, an NGO. The Observatory played an active role in handling the complaint about what had happened to Mr. Guerrero Larez and assisted the complainants. 2.6 On 1 October 2009, the complainants submitted an urgent request to the Attorney General to open an investigation into the disappearance of Mr. Guerrero Larez. On 2 and 5 October 2009, the disappearance was also reported to the internal affa irs bureau of the National Prison Services Directorate and to the Ministry of People ’s Power for the Interior and Justice, respectively. 2.7 On 7 October 2009, Public Defender No. 51 of the Caracas Metropolitan Area visited the Penitentiary to attend to the inmates that he represented, including Mr. Guerrero Larez. After failing to locate him among the prison population, the Public Defender met with the prison’s deputy director and general secretary and with Assistant Prosecutor No. 9 for Correctional Matters of the State of Guárico, but was unable to obtain information on his whereabouts. He then requested Prosecutor ’s __________________ 1 GE.15-10585 According to the complainants, a “pran” is a term used in prison slang in the State party to refer to an inmate who acts as the leader of, and exercises effective control over, a prison or specific section thereof. 3/11