Communication No. 563/1993 Submitted by: Federico Andreu (representing the family of Nydia Erika Bautista de Arellana) Alleged victim: Nydia Erika Bautista de Arellana State party: Colombia Declared admissible: 11 October 1994 (fifty-second session) Date of adoption of Views: 27 October 1995 (fifty-fifth session) Association of Solidarity with Political Prisoners. On 3 September 1987, her father filed a formal complaint with the Human Rights Division of the Attorney-General's Office (Procuraduría Delegada para los Derechos Humanos). Together with the Division's director, her father enquired about Nydia's whereabouts in various police and military offices, as well as with the intelligence services, to no avail. On 14 September 1987, an official in the AttorneyGeneral's Office assigned to investigate the case, recommended that the information he had obtained during the investigation should be sent to the competent judge. Subject matter: Abduction, detention incommunicado and subsequent disappearance of victim - State party’s responsibility for disappearance Procedural issues: Exhaustion of domestic remedies Substantive issues: Enforced disappearance and right to life - Arbitrary arrest - Torture - Fair trial Duty to prosecute crime of enforced disappearance Articles of the Covenant: 2 (3), 6 (1), 7, 9, 10 and 14 (3) (c) Articles of the Optional Protocol and Rules of procedure: 4, paragraph 2; 5, paragraph 2 (a) and (b), and rule 93 (3) 2.4 On 25 September 1987, the case was referred to the Magistrate's Court No. 53. A preliminary hearing was held in November 1987. On 10 February 1988, the examining magistrate discontinued the proceedings and referred the case to the Technical Corps of the Judicial Police (Cuerpo Técnico de la Policía Judicial). Finding: Violation [articles 6, paragraph 1; 7; 9, paragraph 1] 1. The author of the communication is Federico Andreu, a Colombian lawyer residing in Brussels. He is instructed by the relatives and the family of Nydia Erika Bautista de Arellana, a Colombian citizen who disappeared on 30 August 1987, and whose body was subsequently recovered. It is submitted that she is the victim of violations by Colombia of articles 2, paragraph 3; 6, paragraph 1; 7 and 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. 2.5 In the meantime, on 12 September 1987, the body of a woman had been found in the municipality of Guayabetal, Cundinamarca, Colombia. The death certificate, which had been drawn up before the body was buried at the cemetery of Guayabetal, indicated that it concerned a 35-year old woman "wearing a white dress with blue spots and a white hand-bag, blindfolded, the hands tied together, face mutilated". According to the autopsy, the deceased had been shot in the head. No other efforts were made to identify the body. On 14 September 1987, the mayor of Guayabetal gave the death certificate to the municipality's examining magistrate; on 8 October 1987, the latter started his own investigations in the case. The facts as submitted by the author 2.1 On 25 August 1986, N.E. Bautista de Arellana, a member of the 19 April Movement ("M 19"), was detained in Cali, Colombia, by a military unit of the Third Brigade. She was kept incommunicado for three weeks and allegedly tortured during this period. Upon signing a statement that she had been well treated during detention, she was released. Reference is made to other cases of forced disappearances of M-19 activists, which took place prior and subsequent to Nydia Bautista's arrest. 2.6 On 22 December 1987, the examining magistrate of Guayabetal referred the case to the District's section of the Technical Corps of the Judicial Police. On 30 June 1988, the chief of the Preliminary Inquiry Unit of this authority ordered all potential witnesses to be heard. On 8 July 1988, he instructed the commander of the district's police force to take the necessary steps to clarify the events and to identify the perpetrators of the crime. Two police officers were assigned to carry out the investigations. On 17 August 1988, these two officers reported to the Preliminary Inquiry Unit that they "had been unsuccessful in tracking the perpetrators, or in establishing a motive for the 2.2 On 30 August 1987, Nydia Bautista was abducted from the family home in Bogota. According to eyewitnesses, she was pulled into a Suzuki jeep by eight men, who were armed but dressed as civilians. An eyewitness identified the jeep's license plate. 2.3 Ms. Bautista's abduction was immediately brought to the attention of the local authorities by the 103