Colombia’s ELN guerrillas sentence captured prosecutors to 5 years in “revolutionary prison”
The forensic investigators were captured last year in Catatumbo while investigating a homicide
This story is by Adriaan Alsema, of our sister organization Colombia Reports
Colombia’s oldest guerrilla organization, the ELN, said Tuesday that it had sentenced two captured prosecution investigators to “revolutionary prison” sentences of up to six years.
In a video, a spokesperson of the ELN’s Eastern War Front said that Jesus Antonio Pacheco and Rodrigo Antonio Lopez were spared capital punishment after being found guilty of spying and fabricating evidence against civilians.
The two officials are forensic investigators who work for Technical Investigations Unit (CTI) were kidnapped by ELN guerrillas in May last year while investigating a homicide in Arauca, one of the ELN’s strongholds in northeast Colombia.
Usually, ELN frees state employees quickly, or tried to trade them for captured guerrilla fighters.
ELN said the two men were convicted for “belonging to a state agency dedicated to committing crimes against humanity, for carrying out espionage operations against the ELN by involving civilians and minors, and for staging judicial fabrications or “false positives” against the civilian population.”
Pacheca and Lopez were sentenced to 60 and 55 months in prison respectively.
These sentenced were reduced by 60% because of the CTI investigators’ cooperation with the guerrillas’ investigations.
The ELN often hold trials in the areas it controls to settle disputes, or punish perceived wrongdoing — in many ways serving as the de facto state in the regions they control.
According to Caracol Radio, the ELN proposed to swap its captives for imprisoned guerrillas.
Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez rejected the ELN’s allegations against the officials, and stressed that the guerrilla organization “is no judicial authority” but a “drug trafficking cartel.”
The ELN’s decision to try captives for alleged crimes instead of securing their release to humanitarian organizations “is a threat against the Colombian people,” added Sanchez.
The minister called on international humanitarian organizations and the Catholic Church to mediate the release of the CTI officials as well as two police officers who have been held by the guerrilla group.
The ELN announcement came after the guerrillas sent out a press release in which they suggested that they would maintain a suspension of peace talks until after President Gustavo Petro leaves office in August.
Petro embarked on peace talks with the guerrilla group, but these negotiations collapsed.
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