Santiago Gómez Palomino was born in Lima on May 13, 1965. He was 27 and lived in Chorrillos at the time of his disappearance.

During the early morning hours of July 9, 1992, a group of men and women violently broke into the house of Ms. María Elsa Chipana Flores, cousin of his wife.

The people who this group comprised of wore ski masks and military uniforms and boots and carried flashlights and FAL rifles. They took Gómez Palomino out of his room, beat him, insulted him, and asked him about various people, among whom was someone with the last name Mendoza, who the troops believed was the owner of the house. After searching the In the early morning hours of July 9, 1992, a group of men and women violently broke into the house of María Elsa Chipana Flores, family member of Gómez Palomino’s girlfriend. The people wore ski masks, military uniforms, and army boots, and carried flashlights and FAL rifles. They brought Gómez Palomino out of the house, beat him, insulted him, and asked him about various people, among them someone by the name of Mendoza, who they believed was the owner of the house. After searching the house, they tied up, gagged, and threatened the women. They left with Mr. Gómez Palomino in a vehicle that was waiting outsider of the house without showing and warrant or informing him of why he was being detained or where he would be brought.

Santiago Gómez’s mother began to search for her son, but her efforts were fruitless. In August 1992, she met with APRODEH and denounced the kidnapping before the Supreme Human Rights Prosecutor’s Office and the General National Prosecutor’s Office.

In 2001, during the government of President Valentín Paniagua, the investigations into the massacres attributed to the so-called Colina Group were reopened. It was in that context that a former member of the group, Julio Chuqui Aguirre, admitted that among the crimes committed by that group was the disappearance of Gómez Palomino, known as “The Evangelist.” These declarations caused the opening of an investigation by the Specialized Provincial Prosecutor’s Office of Lima.

In December 2002, Mrs. Victoria Palomino Buitrón, mother of Santiago Gómez, represented by APRODEH, presented a formal denunciation before the Specialized Provincial Prosecutor’s Office of Lima of Mr. Vladimiro Montesinos Torres and others for the presumed commission of the crimes of kidnapping and forced disappearance of her son. Later, prosecutor Ana Cecilia Magallanes filed a request to exhume the remains of the presumed victims of the Colina Group, among them Santiago Gómez Palomino, but the bodies were not found.

In November 2005, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights declared that the Peruvian State was responsible in this case. The precise wording of the sentence was that the Peruvian State violated the rights to life, humane treatment, and personal liberty of Santiago Gómez Palomino. The Court further found that the Peruvian State acted against the rights of Gómez Palomino’s family members and ordered that the state pay them economic reparations estimated at US $480,000.