The JEP sets the hearing in which ten members of the Army must acknowledge their responsibility for false positives in the Catatumbo

The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) announced this Saturday that on April 26 and 27, a public hearing will be held to recognize the truth and responsibility of the ten members of the Colombian Army who were charged in case 03, which investigates extrajudicial executions, known as 'false positives' in the the border region of Catatumbo.

This hearing to be held in the municipality of Ocaña, Norte de Santander, which was set by the Recognition Chamber of the Peace Court at the request of the victims accredited in this case, was then determined that 16 preparatory meetings would be held in which the victims, appearances and judicial representatives participated of the parties.

“In these restorative spaces the victims requested that the hearing be held in Catatumbo, an emblematic place for case 03. Ocaña 'is the only place where they could symbolically feel that the holding of such a hearing makes sense for them', warns the Chamber of Truth Recognition through car 036 ″, indicated transitional justice.

The entity, which is part of the Comprehensive System for Peace together with the Truth Commission and the Unit for the Search for Persons Disappeared (UBPD), noted that at the hearing the ten members of the security forces and the third civilian who were found most responsible in the case called 'Murders and Enforced Disappearances presented as combat casualties by agents of the State”.

The perpetrators must go from written acknowledgment they had made in advance, to public recognition before the victims, justice and the country for the war crimes and crimes against humanity that the JEP accused them and which, according to data from the same entity, are part of the 6,402 extrajudicial executions confirmed between 2002 and 2008, when Álvaro Uribe was president.

The speakers are: Brigadier General Paulino Coronado Gámez who was the commander of the 30th Brigade; Colonels Santiago Herrera Fajardo and Rubén Darío Castro Gómez, former commanders of the 15th Mobile Brigade (BRIM15); Lieutenant Colonel Álvaro Diego Tamayo Hoyos, former commander of the 15th Infantry Battalion 'General Francisco de Paula Santander' (BISAN) of Ocaña, Lieutenant Colonel Gabriel de Jesús Rincón Amado, former BRIM15 operations officer and Major Juan Carlos Chaparro, former BISAN commander.

“The JEP also charged the former intelligence officers of the Ocaña Intelligence Center (CIOCA): Captain Daladier Rivera Jácome and Second Sergeant Rafael Antonio Urbano Muñoz; as well as Second Sergeant Sandro Mauricio Pérez Contreras who was head of the BISAN intelligence section, first corporal Néstor Guillermo Gutiérrez Salazar, former squad commander at BRIM15 and the third civilian Alexander Carretero Díaz, who worked as a collaborator of the two military structures,” said transitional justice.

Finally, the Special Jurisdiction stated that if there is a true full, detailed and exhaustive recognition by the accused, the Chamber must produce the respective decision with the findings before the Recognition of Truth and Accountability Section of the peace court no later than three months.

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