After five months in a government morgue, the corpse of former FARC leader Victor Julio Suarez Rojas, alias “Mono Jojoy,” has been transferred to the Jardines del Apogeo cemetery for burial, Caracol Radio reported Tuesday.
The corpse was buried in Bogota, rather than Cabrera, Cundinamarca, where the former leader was born, on the orders of a Colombian judge, who ruled that moving the body could disturb public order in the guerrilla’s hometown.
Relatives of “Mono Jojoy,” including brother Anibal Peralta Rojas, have been trying for some time to get the deceased guerrilla buried. El Pais reported Monday that Rojas was unable to obtain permission from the morgue to move the body until the Prosecutor General’s office gave the order.
Rojas received authorization Tuesday and went to the morgue to have burial papers signed. The body and relatives of the late guerrilla leader were escorted to the cemetery, where funeral rites were performed, at 2:30PM by authorities.
Mono Jojoy, also known as “Jorge Briceño Suárez,” was thought to be the rebel group’s second-in-command. He was killed in a government bomb raid in September 2010.