Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said Thursday he has received information accusing an army brigade of involvement in the illegal drug trade, reports Colombian media.
The Colombian president said that he had receive damning testimony from an informant against the army brigade, which is based in the municipality of Ocaña in the northern department of Santander.
The Colombian president said that members of the armed forces were committing extrajudicial killings – or “false positives” – to disguise their ongoing involvement in the drug trade.
He said, “The narco-traffickers have made alliances with the brigade … and to make it look like their are pursuing the drug-traffickers, they have killed innocent people.”
Uribe appealed to the country’s national army to demonstrate “total efficiency and zero cases of human rights abuses,” such as the “false positives” cases.
Uribe did not reveal the identity of the informant, saying that those who provide such information “must be protected and surrounded by a good environment.”