2 Punish Torture (hereinafter “the Inter-American Convention against Torture”) to the detriment of Maritza Ninette Urrutia García (hereinafter “the alleged victim” or “Maritza Urrutia”), owing to the alleged arbitrary detention and torture to which she was subjected when she was retained in a clandestine place of detention for eight days and obliged to issue to public opinion a communiqué which her captors had prepared previously. 3. The Commission also requested the Court to order the State to adopt all the pecuniary and non-pecuniary reparations indicated in the application, owing to the violations committed against Maritza Urrutia and her next of kin. Lastly, it requested the Inter-American Court to order the State to pay the costs arising from processing this case at the international level, before the organs of the inter-American system for the protection of human rights. II COMPETENCE 4. Guatemala has been a State Party to the American Convention since May 25, 1978, and accepted the contentious jurisdiction of the Court on March 9, 1987. Therefore, the Court is competent to hear this case in the terms of Articles 62 and 63(1) of the Convention. Guatemala has also been a State party to the InterAmerican Convention against Torture since January 29, 1987. III PROCEEDING BEFORE THE COMMISSION 5. On July 27, 1992, the Centro para la Acción Legal en Derechos Humanos [Center for Human Rights Legal Action] (hereinafter “CALDH”) presented a petition to the Inter-American Commission. On July 28, 1992, the Commission opened case No. 11,043 and transmitted the pertinent parts of this petition to the State, requesting it to provide information on the facts within 90 days. 6. On August 9, 2000, in the context of the process to reach a friendly settlement in several cases which were being processed by the Commission, the President of the Republic of Guatemala, Alfonso Portillo, acknowledged the “institutional responsibility” of the Guatemalan State in the Maritza Urrutia case. He also acknowledged the facts that gave rise to the petition submitted to the InterAmerican Commission, indicating that a friendly settlement procedure would be initiated. Despite this, the measures taken to achieve a friendly settlement failed and, on March 2, 2001, during the public hearing on this case, the petitioners requested the Commission to rule on its merits. 7. On October 1, 2001, having examined the positions of the parties and considering that the friendly settlement stage had concluded, the Commission adopted Report on merits No. 71/01, in the operative paragraphs of which, it recommended that: 1. A complete, impartial and effective investigation of the facts reported in the petition be undertaken in order to prosecute and punish the authors of the violations of the human rights of Maritza Urrutia García. 2. A genuine and impartial investigation be undertaken to establish the extent to which State officials took part in punishable conduct and/or disciplinary faults by covering up the arbitrary detention of Maritza Urrutia, and by failing to investigate the