The Supreme Court on Monday sentenced a Bogota man to 58 years and 9 months in prison for his role in the kidnap and subsequent murder of his infant son.
The court rejected an appeal from the defense stating that Orlando Pelayo’s confession was extracted under torture. It was claimed that police had forced him to answer questions during a polygraph test for over ten hours without food or drink, but the court described the charges as an exaggeration and said that it was only the accused who described the torture and because his account of the torture varied from one time to another.
In March 2009 the defense requested a lower sentence because of claims that Pelayo was not the father of the child, because he was abused as a child and because of his psychological state.
Son Luis Santiago Lozano was kidnapped from his home in Chia, Cundinamarca, north of Bogota, September 24 2008 under orders from Pelayo and on the September 30 his lifeless body was found abandoned nearby on Cerro Lourdes, on the road leading to Tabio Chia. Two accomplices, Jorge Ovalle and Martha Munoz, beat the mother, Clara Ivonne Lozano, during the kidnapping. It is believed that Pelayo ordered the crime to avoid paying child support.
Pelayo was originally sentenced to 60 years imprisonment and a fine of $143,640, but this was altered because the maximum sentence for aggravated homicide allowed by the law is 50 years. The sentence for kidnapping brings his sentence to 58 years, 9 months.
The other two defendants in the case, Pelayo’s accomplices Jorge Ovalle and Martha Muñoz, were sentenced to 26 years imprisonment and $24,158 without right to appeal in April 2009.