Colombia’s Militrary Tribunal handed 189 pending investigations into
alleged ‘false positives’ to the Prosecutor General’s Office, newspaper
El Espectador reported Monday.
Traditionally, the Military justice system was the designated authority to investigate crimes by members of the Police, Army and Navy, but this has been transferred to the Prosecutor General’s Office after news broke that possibly more than a thousand members of the security forces are involved in the extrajudicial killing of civilians.
Human rights organizations have long accused the Military Tribunal of granting impunity to the members of the armed forces in human rights abuse cases. The tribunal now transferred all pending investigations to the PG’s Office.
The news comes on the exact day that the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions starts investigating Colombia’s false positives cases.