The International Criminal Court (ICC) may take over investigations
into extrajudicial killings committed by Colombia’s armed forces if the
human rights violations prove to be widespread, chief prosecutor Mario
Iguarán said.
According to Caracol Radio, Iguarán said that by sacking the military officials the Colombian Government prevented a possible lawsuit before the ICC itself.
The chief prosecutor asked the Government to revise the 3 million peso reward for soldiers that report a killed guerrilla. According to Iguarán, the “desire for positive results and the craving for the reward is causing these dark events.”
After the dismissal of 27 members of the armed forces for forcefully disappearing and murdering civilians to spice up the bodycount, Colombia has been under heavy pressure to clean up its human rights record.
The country’s attorney general is currently investigating nearly a thousand possible extrajudicial executions that occured in the past six years.
