Latin America
Related: About this forumBogota to arrest military colonel over 15 killings
Bogota to arrest military colonel over 15 killings
December 15, 2015
BOGOTA: A Colombian judge has ordered the arrest of an active duty army colonel for his alleged role in the 2007 extra-judicial killings of 15 civilians, prosecutors said on Sunday.
The executions allegedly were carried out by army staff overseen by Colonel Nelson Velazquez Parrado.
The countrys 40th local criminal court ... has ordered the detention at the jail unit of Colonel Nelson Velazquez Parrado for the homicides of 15 people in Antioquia, a northern department, in 2007, the prosecutors office said in a statement. The colonel has been charged with manslaughter, as well as conspiracy, weapons charges and falsifying documents, it added.
Colombia has been in the throes of an armed conflict for half a century and hundreds of soldiers have been convicted of extrajudicial killings of civilians that were then presented as rebels killed in combat.
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Judi Lynn
(160,545 posts)A jail by Colonel Nelson Velasquez false positives
ElUniversal
Medellín (El Colombiano)
December 13, 2015 11:28 a.m.
Security measure in penitentiary for being co-author of 16 alleged killings of civilians, as reported by the Army combat deaths in northeastern Antioquia, won the 40 Municipal Criminal Court of Medellín with control functions guarantees against Colonel Nelson Velasquez Parrado .
The official, nominated to start the course for promotion to General of the Army next year, appeared voluntarily before the Attorney General's Office last Wednesday.
The prosecution said that the events under investigation occurred between February and November 2007 in the municipalities of Segovia and Remedios, northeastern Antioquia, where troops from the Energy Road No. 8 of the National Army, commanding Parrado Velásquez, deaths reported suspected combatants and members of illegal groups in the area, carrying weapons of long and short range, in order to show operating results.
The researchers established that the victims were mostly homeless people or drug addicts, who led by deception from Medellin Antioquia or Risaralda to the east, by a civilian who offered them employment.
According to the investigation by a Special Prosecutor of the National Human Rights and IHL, Velasquez Parrado, commander of the battalion at the time of the facts, he was aware of the supply of weapons and money that was used in the transfer of victims to the region.
The official did not accept the charges the prosecutor charged him for the crimes of homicide in protected person, aggravated conspiracy, illegal possession of firearms and falsifying a public document. The defense appealed the decision.
http://www.eluniversal.com.co/colombia/la-carcel-coronel-nelson-velasquez-por-falsos-positivos-213827
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This pattern has been used in most of the "false positive" murders by the Colombian military, and its allied ultra-violent death squad thugs, the paramilitaries AUC. They have preyed upon the poor of Colombia, bringing them through deceit to meet some mysterious "employer" who might hire them, then murdering them, and arranging their bodies to look as if they might have been rebels before making formal statements the dead men were enemy fighters killed in combat. They were always well rewarded, to keep the numbers of dead "enemy" high, and present a constant image to the world that there was a horrific war going on against a very persistent native enemy. Made the perfect excuse for raking in over 9 billion dollars of foreign military aid from the U.S. just since 2000, with the inception of "Plan Colombia."