A Colombian court has ordered the Ministry of Defense and the Armed Forces to pay more than $260,000 to the family of a young man who was murdered and disguised as a guerrilla in 1998.
Juan Carlos Misat Camargo was abducted in the northern department of Cesar by the counter-insurgent Battalion 40 before being killed, adorned in camouflage and planted with a rifle to look like a member of the ELN guerrilla group.
The Colombian government was ordered by the State Council, the country’s highest administrative court, to pay over $260,000 in compensation to Camargo’s wife and son.
Authorities were tipped off to the incident by a soldier involved in the cover-up who said Camargo was disguised as a guerrilla to boost casualty counts for the battalion.
The phenomenon of the Colombian army disguising murdered civilians as guerrillas to increase kill counts is popularly known as “false positives.”