CCPR/C/WG/60/DR/612/1995 page 7 the proceedings. On 5 May 1993, the military court held that there was insufficient evidence to indict Lieutenant-Colonel Luis Fernando Duque Izquierdo and Lieutenant Pedro Fernández Ocampo (by then Captain) and that proceedings should be discontinued. This decision was upheld by the High Military Court. Meanwhile, on 23 October 1991, Criminal Court No. 93 had ordered the case against Alberto Uribe Oñate and Eduardo Enrique Mattos to be shelved; it also decided that the case should be sent back to the Valledupar Judicial Police for further investigations. In accordance with article 324 of the Code of Penal Procedure, preliminary investigations must continue until such time as there is sufficient evidence either to indict or to clear those allegedly responsible for a crime. 4.3 In his reply, counsel submits that the State party's allegation that domestic remedies exist is a fallacy, since, under the Colombian Military Code, there are no provisions enabling the victims of human rights violations or their families to institute criminal indemnity proceedings before a military court. 4.4 In a further submission of 8 December 1995, the State party observes that, when ruling on the appeal against the sentence of 26 August 1993 handed down by the Administrative Tribunal in Valledupar in respect of the participation of members of the military in the disappearance and subsequent murder of the three indigenous leaders, the Third Section of the Administrative Chamber of the State Council upheld the decision of the lower court that there was no evidence that they had taken part in the murder of the three leaders. The Committee's admissibility decision 5.1 At its fifty-sixth session, the Committee examined the admissibility of the communication and took note of the State party's request that the communication should be declared inadmissible. With regard to the exhaustion of available domestic remedies, the Committee noted that the victims' disappearance was reported immediately to the police in Curumani by the bus driver, that the complaint filed with the Human Rights Division of the Attorney-General's Office clearly indicated which army officers were held responsible for the violations and should be punished and that further proceedings were instituted in Criminal Court No. 93. Notwithstanding this material evidence, a military investigation was conducted during which the two officers were cleared and not brought to trial. The Committee considered that there were doubts about the effectiveness of remedies available to the authors in the light of the decision of Military Court No. 15. In these circumstances, it must be concluded that the authors diligently, but unsuccessfully, filed applications for remedies aimed at the criminal prosecution of the two military officers held to be responsible for the disappearance of the three Arhuaco leaders and the torture of the Villafañe brothers. More than five years after the occurrence of the events dealt with in the present communication, those held responsible for the death of the three Arhuaco leaders have not been indicted let alone tried. The Committee