2023-12-14 20:02:01
BOGOTÁ (AP) — The Colombian prosecutor’s office made “abusive use” of its judicial prosecution function in two cases related to the peace court that judges crimes committed in five decades of internal conflict, which posed an obstacle to the prosecution process. peace, as the delegate for the UN Human Rights Council warned on Thursday.
Antonia Urrejola, in charge of identifying and verifying the obstacles to the implementation of the peace agreement signed in 2016 between the State and the FARC guerrilla, denounced that this excess in the prosecutor’s persecution role occurred in at least two episodes.
On the one hand, in the case of alias “Jesús Santrich”, a former guerrilla commander of the extinct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and also in a judicial process against three officials of the Peace Court.
In the first, the peace court, called the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), filed a complaint about the alleged lack of cooperation of the Prosecutor’s Office – in charge of ordinary criminal prosecution – when providing information about the legal situation of “Jesús Santrich” which was requested between 2018 and 2019 and which would serve to verify if they could give him guarantees of non-extradition as part of the benefit for signing the peace.
“The issue was resolved more than a year later with “Jesús Santrich” deprived of liberty throughout that time, with communications that went back and forth between the JEP and the Prosecutor’s Office… An excessive delay affects due process regardless of the responsibilities” Urrejola said Thursday at a press conference in Bogotá.
After being imprisoned and regaining his freedom, “Santrich” remained a fugitive for three years and returned to arms, founding a dissident group called “Segunda Marquetalia”, together with the former FARC commander and also a deserter from the agreement alias “Iván Márquez”.
As reported by the same armed group in 2021, “Santrich” is presumed dead.
The second case in which Urrejola observed abuse of prosecution by the prosecution was in the judicial process faced by three officials of the executive secretariat of the JEP for alleged irregularities to unduly favor former members of the FARC.
The Prosecutor’s Office charged them, but a judge acquitted them in 2022 considering that their direct responsibility was not determined.
“These people could not apply for the JEP because they were the subject of persecution, of a judicial process that took three and a half years and last year they were acquitted,” said Urrejola, an international human rights expert at the UN.
Urrejola clarified that his mandate is not equivalent to a criminal investigation that could determine criminal responsibilities.
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