The Antioquia Criminal Court sentenced seven soldiers to 30 years in jail for their participation in the murder of a farmer as a ‘falso positivo’.
The ‘falsos positivos’ scandal revealed that members of the security
forces had been killing innocent civilians to make the war against
illegal armed groups seem more effective.
Those sentenced had reported an encounter with FARC guerrillas on 12 January 2006 in San José de Apartadó in Antioquia. They stated that they had found the supposed guerrillla armed with a granade and several guns.
The Prosecutor General found that there had been no confrontation and that the accused soldiers accounts of the encounter were contradictory.
