Authorities arrested an army lieutenant in Medellín Thursday. He is
suspected of having murdered three peasants. The victims were later
registered as guerrillas killed in combat.
According to a statement of the Prosecutor General’s office, the official was arrested by the National Human Rights Unit and charged with “triple homicide of protected persons”.
The lieutenant allegedly killed the three peasants in a rural village in the Córdoba department. The three later ended up on a list of dead guerrillas.
“However, the families of the victims told the Prosecution the deceased were widely known farmers in the region,” the Prosecution says.
The Colombian armed forces have come under scrutiny after an increasing number of stories of members of the armed forces killing civilians arose. The Colombian government, that has denied the practice of extrajudicial killings for years, has already sacked dozens of soldiers and says it’s investigating nearly 800 members of the armed forces for murder.