A/HRC/45/CRP.11 restrictions due to the pandemic also presented difficulties for the investigation. This included the fact that several witnesses were unable to travel to secure locations for interviews and sources could not access key documents kept in their offices. Problems of electricity blackouts and internet failures in Venezuela also often hindered telephone interviews. 8. The Mission was nevertheless able to gather the information necessary to establish facts and draw conclusions in accordance with its mandate. The investigation has identified specific incidents and patterns establishing reasonable grounds to believe violations of international human rights law and international criminal law have been committed. The Mission has indicated throughout the present report where further investigations may be required. II. Methodology and Legal Framework A. Methodology and Standard of Proof 9. The Mission collected information through the following main methods: (1) confidential interviews, both in-person and via secure telephone or video connections; (2) confidential documents obtained from individuals and organizations, including legal case files; (3) a call for submissions; and (4) review of open source information. The Mission carried out 274 interviews with victims, witnesses, family members, former State officials, lawyers, representatives of non-Governmental organizations and international personnel. 10. The Mission made full use of available open source information on Venezuela to conduct its investigations. This includes social media (especially Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube), blogs, reports, journalistic articles, op-eds, press releases, etc. The Mission referred to open source information to identify and verify incidents and actors involved (victims and perpetrators) and to corroborate and help contextualize information gathered from direct sources through confidential documentation and interviews. The Mission determined whether the information in open source documents are prima facie reliable by reviewing and evaluating the content as well as contextual information. 11. Consistent with other Fact-Finding Missions established by the Human Rights Council, the Mission used “reasonable grounds to believe” as its standard of proof. The reasonable grounds standard is met when factual information has been collected which would satisfy an objective and ordinarily prudent observer that the incident has occurred as described with a reasonable degree of certainty. The standard of proof is applied to both of the determinations relevant in the identification: (a) that the violation or crime occurred, and (b) that the individual identified was responsible. This standard of proof is lower than that required in criminal proceedings to sustain an indictment, but is sufficiently high to indicate that further investigations are warranted. 12. The Mission investigated 223 cases,1 of which 48 are included as in depth case studies in the present report. Criteria for selecting cases included substantive, security and other considerations, such as, availability of witnesses, legal case files and digital evidence. In order to corroborate the patterns identified in the cases investigated, the Mission reviewed an additional 2891 cases of human rights violations in its four mandated areas, based on both direct and secondary information. 13. Individual cases or incidents contained in the report are based on at least one credible source of direct information, which was independently corroborated by at least one other credible source of information. Specific major incidents are based on multiple accounts from eyewitnesses and victims, allowing for in-depth fact-finding and detailed event reconstruction. Where the report describes patterns of conduct, these are based on the common elements established by the cases investigated, corroborated by other credible information collected. 14. The Mission considered the following to be sources of direct information, where the sources were reliable and credible: 1 A case refers to a particular incident, event or occurrence, which could involve one or more victims. 3