Ten Colombian military officers were barred for allegedly torturing 21 fellow soldiers as a part of counter-guerrilla training, reported RCN television network on Tuesday.
According to RCN, the soldiers were tortured through suffocation, sexual abuse, beatings and burns, as a means of a training tactic performed by military officers to simulate FARC capture.
Although the training only lasted a day, the torture was so severe that many soldiers allegedly sustained permanent disability and mental disorders from the abuse. Multiple soldiers were even convulsing afterward.
RCN reported that the officers used torture in their training because research has shown that soldiers who have endured such abuse “have tested higher for not submitting to giving information to the guerrilla organizations if they were kidnapped.”
The incident allegedly occurred in the Roque battalion of the Tolima department in central Colombia on January 25, 2006.
