CCPR/C/114/D/2395/2014
discriminated against or that his trials were not conducted in accordance with due
process.
4.6 Although the author was convicted by Court No. 19 for the crime of homicide
under especially aggravated circumstances, the prosecutor ’s request to convict him of
the offence of enforced disappearance was based on the most recent legal scholarship
and case law in international human rights law, according to which crimes against
humanity are not subject to the statute of limitations and the prosecution of such
crimes is mandatory for all States. The State party adds that States have an obligation
to investigate serious human rights violations, in light of the right to the truth, memory
and justice.
4.7 In view of these considerations, the State party maintains that the statute of
limitations cannot apply at times when individual rights are impaired or due proce ss
guarantees are not available. The State party underscores that the author ’s case
involves not only ordinary offences but homicide under especially aggravated
circumstances, given that, at the time the offences were committed, the International
Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance was not
yet in force. However, as found by the courts that tried the case, the author is
responsible for the most serious and systematic human rights violations, which
included enforced disappearance, torture, extrajudicial killing, and arbitrary and
unlawful detention, committed in the State party under a civil -military dictatorship
between 1973 and 1985.
4.8 The State party argues that the author cannot use his communication to the
Committee as a means of obtaining a fourth hearing.
Author’s comments on the State party’s observations on admissibility
5.1 On 15 August 2014, the author replied to the State party’s observations on
admissibility. The author reiterates his allegations and maintains that the State party
violated article 2 of the Covenant because the criminal law was applied differently for
political reasons.
5.2 The author claims that, taking into account his age and state of health, the
sentence of 25 years is equivalent in his case to life imprisonment or the death penalty
and is a violation of his rights under articles 6 and 7 of the Covenant.
5.3 The author stresses that he was not convicted of crimes against humanity and
that the periods of limitations for the offence of homicide should therefore be applied.
5.4 The author informs the Committee that he has been in the Military Hospital for
two full years and that he was transferred from prison to that hospital on several
occasions in the past because of his very poor state of health.
5.5 The author contends that the State party failed to apply the statute of limitations
to the criminal offences he was charged with, or the principles of ne bis in idem and
res judicata, and that he was not treated equally before the law comp ared with other
citizens, in violation of articles 9, 14, 15 and 26 of the Covenant.
5.6 The author informs the Committee that he was not convicted, only tried, by first instance Criminal Trial Court No. 1 (Second Rota) (see para graph 4.5 above).
5.7 The author claims that he did not have access to the file in the case before Court
No. 19, which sentenced him for the offence of aggravated homicide, that the defence
was not permitted due review of the evidence and that the prosecutor, M.G., was not
impartial, because she had had ties to the movements opposed to the regime that had
governed the State party in the 1970s.
8/13
GE.15-13662