In a WhatsApp message sent to Ramelli, the AGC allegedly declared the two magistrates a “military objective” for “digging up a past that is already buried.”
The JEP called on the prosecution to investigate the threat and urged on the government of President Gustavo Petro to make progress in the dismantling of illegal armed groups like the AGC.
The AGC denied responsibility and blamed Colombia’s intelligence services of sending the death threat.
Ramelli and Escobar have been investigating the extrajudicial executions committed by Colombia’s security forces in the first decade of this century.
The magistrate received the death threat during a visit of the United States’ top diplomat for global criminal justice, Beth van Schaack.
In a tweet, the American official condemned the threat and stressed the JEP’s criminal investigations are “critical for securing victims’ rights and implementing the peace accord” signed by former President Juan Manuel Santos and the now-defunct guerrilla group FARC in 2016.
The president also rejected the death threat and suggested to end preliminary peace talks with the illegal armed group “so we don’t waste time.”
The AGC was formed by dissident former commanders of the AUC between 2006 and 2007 amid tensions with former President Alvaro Uribe over the demobilization of the now-defunct paramilitary organization.
The group has since then recovered territorial control in Colombia’s Caribbean region and along the Pacific coast.