The Prosecutor General’s Office announces it will begin investigations into the possible false demobilization of more than 850 AUC members in 2003, Radio Santa Fe reported Monday.
“We are already taking action on the matter,” said Nestor Armando Novoa, the national director of prosecutors.
Former paramilitary commander Freddy Rendon Herrera, alias “El Aleman,” told El Tiempo over the weekend that the demobilization of over 850 paramilitaries in Medellin in 2003 was a farce.
El Aleman, the brother of captured drug lord “Don Mario,” accused government officials such as former Peace Commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo and criminal organizations such as the Office of Envigado of taking civilians from communas around Medellin and paying them to surrender along with members of the AUC bloc, “Cacique Nutibara.” The bloc was led by extradited paramilitary leader, “Don Berna.”
“The [demobilization] of the Cacique Nutibara bloc was a fictitious demobilization, they gathered old uniforms and weapons for this spectacle …, led by Diego Fernando Murillo alias ‘Don Berna’,” El Aleman told El Tiempo.
The initial demobilization report was tainted with doubt because the surrendering paramilitaries were reportedly wearing new camouflage and carrying long range weapons, which is inconsistent with a typical urban AUC fighter.
The former commander of the AUC bloc, “Heroes de Granada” said that ex-Medellin Mayor Sergio Fajardo, as well as current Mayor Alonso Salazar, benefited politically from the demobilization.
Other beneficiaries, El Aleman reported to El Tiempo, were criminal gangs such as the Office of Envigado who continued illegal actions pretending to surrender.
Jorge Gaviria, a former aid to Luis Carlos Restrepo, on Sunday denied allegations of a false demobilization, saying, “This was not a sham. It’s that they [the paramilitaries] made the protocol for the event of the arms surrender, and they decided to be camouflaged. They would have been less credible if they were dressed as civilians.”
The former aid argued that the camouflage looked new because the urban militias rarely or never used this garb.
“The first thing should be clear is that the lists of people susceptible to the process of demobilization, were given by the commanders of the ‘paras’, not the high commissioner … If anyone says now that they weren’t [paramilitaries] then they lied to the competent authorities,” said Gaviria in a report from El Tiempo.
El Aleman is currently being held in Colombia after a request for his extradition to the U.S. was denied by the Colombian courts. He faces charges for up to 450 murders.