Mario Jesus Palomino Garcia

On March 23, 1996, five Peruvian police agents arrested 37-year-old Mario Palomino, who had gone to a party for his cousin. When the party ended, Palomino told his brother that he would go by to see his children. Palomino never arrived at his destination: he was picked up by a patrol officers searching for drug dealers and placed in a police vehicle. The following morning, when his brother discovered that Palomino had not returned home, he visited the police station twice, but they told him that the cells were empty. Later on, a friend told the brother that several neighbors had witnessed the patrol officers arresting Palomino.

Eventually, the brother found Palomino in Lima’s central morgue. The autopsy reported the existence of multiple cuts and bruises on his back, pelvis, wrists, arms, right thigh, left knee and Palomino’s forehead. It concluded that these signs corresponded to him having suffered physical trauma, but were not the cause of death. Death took place from a cerebral and lung oedema that could have been cause by a variety of additional factors. The statements of the five agents that arrested Palomino and those of other people arrested that night demonstrated that Palomino had been hit after he was placed in the police vehicle. According to agent Luis Alberto Sanchez Vasquez, an agent nicknamed Revolledo hit Palomino repeatedly with a flashlight on several parts of his body. Other suspects picked up by the patrol officers stated that they had seen him handcuffed, lying face down on the floor of the police car, unconscious and smelling of alcohol. The police continued picking up suspects until they filled the vehicle with fifteen detainees. Several sat down on the body of Palomino which smelled of excrement.

Several hours later the police realized that Palomino was dead. The official in charge of the squad, Major Victor Manuel Cabrejos Pastor, said to one of his subordinates to leave the body of Palomino on a street patrolled by another police station. The subordinate refused.