Colombia investigating 22 generals over extrajudicial killing scandal
Colombia investigating 22 generals over extrajudicial killing scandal
Mon Apr 13, 2015 2:06pm EDT
By Anastasia Moloney
BOGOTA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Colombia's attorney-general has said he will step up investigations of 22 army generals for their alleged role in the killing of dozens of civilians in a notorious episode of the country's five-decade conflict. The announcement on Sunday by Eduardo Montealegre comes as government and rebel negotiators hammer out a peace deal in Cuba with impunity for abuses committed by both sides during the war a thorny issue.
The extrajudicial killings involve hundreds of innocent men killed by security forces, who passed them off as guerrillas killed in battle to inflate the body count in the government's war against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The scandal first came to light in 2008 when Alvaro Uribe was president, and current President Juan Manuel Santos was defense minister.
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In all, state prosecutors are investigating 5,000 members of Colombia's armed forces for extrajudicial executions involving 4,382 civilians.
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Most of the extrajudicial killings, involved poor, unemployed or mentally ill young men, including teenagers as young as 16.
Former president Uribe's all-out military offensive against the FARC meant the armed forces were under constant pressure to boost rebel body counts and show they were winning the war, the United Nations says.
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