Colombia ex-army chief will be charged over extrajudicial killings
Colombia's attorney general's office will charge former army commander General Mario Montoya for responsibility of 104 extrajudicial executions, as part of the "false positives" scandal, it said on Sunday.
The false positives took place between 2002 and 2008, during
the term of ex-President Alvaro Uribe, when soldiers murdered civilians and
registered them as guerrilla fighters killed in combat to receive benefits.
The country's transitional justice court (JEP) says at least
6,402 people were killed this way, but some victims' groups allege the numbers
could be higher.
The accusations against Montoya, who is retired, relate to
killings that took place from November 2007 and November 2008, including the
deaths of five minors.
Despite orders from the defense ministry and military
command to prioritize captures, Montoya, 72, did not pass them on and continued
to incentivize combat deaths, for which he will be charged with multiple counts
of aggravated homicide, the attorney general's office said.
"He continued to evaluate commanders by number of
reported combat deaths," said an attorney general's office document seen
by Reuters.
"General Montoya continued to exert pressure on all the
country's commanders to comply with his policy of operational results, in which
combat deaths were the only criteria for evaluating the campaign," the
document added.
Montoya has previously denied committing the crimes he is
accused of, while his lawyer, Andres Garzon, told local press the case is being
investigated by the JEP and is therefore outside the attorney general's
jurisdiction.
Montoya, who remains free, was commander of Colombia's army
between 2006 and 2008. He submitted himself to the JEP in 2018.
Dozens of army officials have been arrested and convicted of
involvement in the killings, with some appearing before the JEP to testify and
receive lighter sentences than they would under the ordinary justice system.
The JEP was created under a 2016 peace deal to prosecute
former members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels and
military leaders for alleged war crimes.
Under the ordinary justice system Montoya could be sentenced
to up to 50 years in prison, but under the JEP he could receive a sentence of
between five and eight years, which would not be served in prison.
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