The shocking case with which Juan Manuel Santos confirmed the seriousness of “false positives”

This Friday, former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos arrived at the Truth Commission to give his version of the extrajudicial executions or “false positives” that took place while he was Minister of Defense from 2006 to 2009 in the government of ‘Álvaro Uribe. In his account, he admitted that at first he didn’t believe the rumors that had reached him, but it wasn’t until he faced reality in mid-2008 that he taken action in this regard.

According to Santos, several people had pointed out to him that this practice was taking place and although measures were taken due to isolated irregular actions, he did not fully understand the seriousness of the case until the soldier of the Calibío John Fredy Ortiz battalion, son of Aicardo Ortiz, denounced that his father had been murdered by his companions.

“The UN had confirmed that it was a false positive because the victim’s son went to his office in Bogotá to report the incident. It was precisely this soldier, with whom we spoke, who had also directly witnessed other murders committed by the “Calibío” battalion. His 67-year-old father was killed by the battalion and reported as a guerrilla killed in action, ”Santos told the Commission.

On July 8, 2008, soldiers from this military unit entered Aicardo’s house and shot him at close range. Then they took advantage of the fact that his neighbors knew him as “Murcielago”, they took this nickname and presented him as a “very dangerous” guerrilla, according to the soldier Eduard Alejandro Castaño Bolaños, one of the officials, before the First Specialized Court of Medellín.

Ortiz was dressed in Farc guerrilla clothes, they fitted a radio and introduced him to his superiors, who were already aware of the situation. When John Fredy Ortiz found out, he decided to find out what he knew: He told authorities that he was already aware of the practice of false positives. He explained the ‘legalization kit’, with which they dressed the murdered people to pass them off as guerrillas, explained the intelligence these people made to study their victim and attack him, as happened produced with his father in Yoló, Antioquia.

“General Padilla, who had been deputy commander of the 14th Brigade and knew the area, asked him many questions. [a John Fredy], to which the soldier responded precisely. For the first time, we had the reality of false positives clearly before our eyes, ”said Juan Manuel Santos.

Santos Calderón said he ordered the commanders of the 14th Brigade and the Calibío Battalion to appear before him to explain what had happened. “After listening to them, it became clear to us that the officers’ explanations of this man’s death were not credible ”.

According to El Espectador, Aicardo Ortiz was put back in a bag at the request of his son who spoke to senior officials in charge of the operation, who called his father a “dog”, a term they used. , according to John Fredy, to refer to victims of false positives.

This person was the colonel Wilson Ramirez Cedeño, who in 2008 was dismissed by the government for the charges against him and who was later sentenced to 37 years in prison by the criminal court of the specialized circuit of decongestion of Cartagena. His charges were for murder of a protected person and simple kidnapping.

After that, then defense minister Juan Manuel Santos learned of the case of the young man from Soacha, one of the most important in false positive history. According to the former president, what happened in Soacha “just made our hair stand on end”.

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