Colombian President Álvaro Uribe denied Friday the government rewards army soldiers per reported guerrilla killed in combat.
According to the president, the bonus only goes to civilians whose information leads to the arrest of members of illegally armed forces.
Opposition parties and Chief Prosecutor Mario Iguarán had earlier criticized the government, saying the reward was encouraging the military to falsify the army’s result by murdering civilians and reporting them as guerrillas killed in combat.
Colombia’s armed forces are under severe pressure after the government was forced to sack more than twenty officials for the disappearance and death of eleven young men and the revelation the Attorney General was investigating nearly 1,000 suspicious civilian deaths.