Colombian court accuses soldiers of murdering 303 civilians

By Laura Gamba

BOGOTA, Colombia (AA) - Colombia's Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) on Monday accused 22 members of the military of murdering at least 303 civilians and falsely presenting them as rebel fighters who had been killed in combat.

The killings are part of a scandal known in Colombia as the "false positives," a scheme set up by army officers to boost their statistics in the fight against the guerrillas so army members could receive promotions or other benefits.

The charges marked the first time the JEP tribunal has accused members of the army of using children to commit the crimes. Soldiers used minors to recruit some of their victims and trick them before murdering them, the court said in a statement.

Among the 303 victims were women, a person of diverse sexual orientation, teenagers, elderly people and people with cognitive disabilities.

“These were not isolated or spontaneous events," the JEP said.

The killings were presented as combat deaths in Colombia's Casanare, Boyaca, Meta and Arauca provinces between 2005 and 2008 in order to inflate body counts, the court said.

Most of the “false positives” took place between 2002 and 2008, under the government of former President Alvaro Uribe, who intensified the fight against the leftist rebel group FARC, which later signed a peace agreement with the government of Juan Manuel Santos in 2016.

In many of these cases, it was revealed that after killing their victims, soldiers would dress them in guerrilla outfits and combat boots and plant weapons on their casualties to make them look like insurgents. Victims were sometimes even found with their boots on backwards or wearing brand new uniforms.

The JEP found in February that at least 6,402 people were killed as “false positives.”