These young people, mostly poor peasants, had been presented as killed in action to inflate the results of the fight against guerrillas and armed groups.
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About twenty soldiers, including a general, recognized their responsibility in the execution in the 2000s of hundreds of civilians who were then presented as guerrillas killed in combat, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) said on Friday (December 10th).
The JEP, a special tribunal created in 2016, “received the confessions of 21 members of the national army (…) for the assassination” of some 247 people, Judge Catalina Diaz told a press conference. These killings of civilians took place in the coca growing region of Catatumbo, on the border with Venezuela, and on the Caribbean coast. Another litigant, civilian, admitted to being a “collaborator of military structures in their illegal actions”.
The special court had indicted 25 soldiers for their responsibility in the cold-blooded execution of young people, mostly poor peasants, presented as killed in combat to inflate their results in the fight against the guerrillas and the armed groups. The court plans to hand down its first sentences in 2022.