The alleged murder of eleven young men from Soacha in December 2007 in Ocaña,
a municipality close to the Venezuelan border, was not the first case
of ‘false positives’ in the region. Members of the armed forces used the town for extrajudicial executions since 2006, the Prosecutor
General’s Office says.
According to Maria Cecilia Jaimes, prosecutor for the PG’s Human Rights United, her unit has testimonies of members of the armed forces that speak of extrajudicial executions since 2006.
The prosecutor told Caracol Radio that a “criminal organization” of members of the armed forces and civilians were recruiting young men — not only in Soacha, but also in the Cesar department — to lure them to come to Ocaña where they would be executed and then be presented as guerrillas killed in combat.
According to the prosecutor, more military officials were involved in the killings and that the murder on the eleven men from Soacha was not an isolated incident. “This was part of a pattern that seeked operational results,” Jaimes said.
35 members of the armed forces are charged with murder of the eleven young men. The Prosecutor General’s Office is investigating more than a thousand members of the armed forces for their alleged involvement in the extrajudicial killings of civilians to make the war against illegal armed groups look more effective.