Commanders of one of the battalions with the most cases of ‘false positives’, according to the JEP

On February 12, the Chamber for the Recognition of the Truth, Responsibility and Determination of the Facts and Behaviors of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) communicated by ordinance No. 033 of 2021 that in Colombia, between 2002 and 2008, there were at least 6,402 cases of extrajudicial executions or “false positives” by the national army. This figure is boxed in case 03 entitled “Illegitimate deaths presented as victims in combat by state agents” in which the Court of Peace gave priority to the investigations into this crime in six departments of Colombia where there are more evidence to date.

Among these six, there is Antioquia, which, according to JEP surveys, is the department with the best known cases. In this region, the IV Brigade of the army operates, which could be responsible for 73% of the deaths identified between 2000 and 2013., according to the House. Eight battalions are detached from this brigade which report a total of 1216 deaths due to extrajudicial executions, but among them, three report 58.1% of the total deaths and are the artillery battalion No.4, Colonel Jorge Eduardo Sánchez (Bajes), with 306 credits. deaths; the Juan del Corral (Cmjco) mechanized cavalry group, with 216 and the Combat Engineer Battalion No. 4, General Pedro Nel Ospina (Biosp), with 185 cases.

According to Chamber information, Biosp is the third military unit with the most casualties in Antioquia. According to the Ordinance, for 2003, 4 cases were reported, a figure which reached 26 in 2004 and 55 in 2005. For 2008, this number fell to 12. Three commanders passed through this battalion from 2004 to 2008. Infobae collects who they were and what related cases they have or had opened in the regular justice system.

Jairo Bocanegra de la Torre

In 2004, the commander arrived Jairo Bocanegra de la Torre, a soldier who had, at that time, 20 years of experience in senior positions as Chief of Staff and Second Commander of Operational Command No.9 in Bagre, Antioquia, in addition to having spent by executive troops in Arauca and to command the engineering school, from which he graduated as a civil engineer.

Bocanegra ordered the Biosp until June 2005, but it was not until 2007 that in a judgment of the Superior Court of Medellín, for a process led by Justice and Peace, his name was mentioned in alleged cases of extrajudicial executions. Here, José Miguel Gil Sotelo, a former FARC guerrilla, and Daniel Alejandro Serna, a former paramilitary, gave a version against the participation of public forces in the crimes committed by the Southwest Front of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). In these statements, they confessed to having people uniform while members of the military faked mock operations and wrote the report. “one of those who collaborated with the vigilante groups was the commander, a Colonel Bocanegra», They affirmed.

In addition, the insurgents told the court that Bocanegra was involved in a crime in the village of El Cedro, Amagá, where they murdered two minors. “In the village of El Cedro de Amagá, they carried out an operation in which two children died. During this operation, they were given the uniform to pass them off as members of the illegal group. There, alias “El Zarco” died and a Venezuelan died. It was like more or less in 2003 or 2004, in total there were four deaths … “.

For the prosecutor’s office, the plaintiffs referred to Jairo Bocanegra de la Torre, who in 2007 was already colonel of the National Army Reserve and, on the basis of these testimonies, the Court ordered the certification of copies to the accusing body to deal with the case, however, the investigation failed and Bocanegra has not been convicted of these crimes.

Edgar Emilio Ávila Doria

For this year and after Bocanegra left the Biosp and went to command another military center in Tolemaida, Cundinamarca, Édgar Emilio Ávila Doria would have arrived in December to lead this battalion. According to the JEP, 2005 was the year that false positive cases in this military unit exploded, reaching 55, being the highest number recorded in eight years by the High Court for this center.

In 2006, 10 tactical units of the Army’s IV Brigade offered a competition whose unit had the highest death toll, a task which, as the Las 2 Orillas portal reports, was complicated because the battalion was located in the urban area. de Bello, in Comuna 13 de Medellín, which put them at a disadvantage with the military centers located in Caquetá, Norte de Santander (Catatumbo) or Bolívar, however, for Ávila Doria this would have become a challenge. The directives allegedly sent by the then army commander, Mario Montoya, were the weapon with which Edgar Emilio Ávila pressured his subordinates. “Commanders are evaluated on their results ”or“ casualties are not the most important thing, it’s the only thing ”, they were used as gasoline to bring back the dead to the battalion. This task was supported by the then second in command, José Zanguña Duarte. That year they won.

Pedro Nel Ospina handed over 86 guerrillas presumed dead, 90 criminals captured, 150 firearms seized and 180 devices deactivated, making it the most operational military unit in 2006. For this year, The JEP reports that there are at least 35 deaths identified as extrajudicial killings attributed to Biosp, a figure which for the following year remained exactly the same.

Cases

On October 19, 2006, in the village of La Primavera, in the municipality of Santo Domingo, northwest of Antioquia, national army troops reported the deaths of three suspected extortionists. Their names were Mauricio Quintero Rubio, Reinaldo Osorio Jiménez and Alex Correa Pérez. According to the version of those involved, the men confronted the military with close-range weapons, which the prosecutor’s office contradicted and declared false.

According to the prosecution, these three people were victims of extrajudicial executions when they were deceived there by a man who promised them employment opportunities.. In this case, a judge issued an arrest warrant against Ávila Doria in March 2015, accused of the crimes of homicide of a protected person, simple kidnapping and ideological forgery in a public document as a co-perpetrator.

In February 2016, a little over a year later, a specialized prosecutor from the National Directorate of Human Rights and IHL indicted this colonel and his second commander, José Zanguña Duarte, with the triple homicide. 10 other soldiers were selected for these events.

But in December 2015, Ávila Doria was accused, in another case, along with another high command, of being responsible for the crimes of homicide of a protected person and of conspiracy to commit a crime. According to the investigation, on April 18, 2006, in the village of La Raya in the municipality of Concepción, Antioquia, a mock fight was fought in which Víctor Manuel Correa Palacio and José Miguel Madrid Urrego were killed. and presented as casualties in combat.

According to the official report, on this date, the prosecution was already carrying out other investigations against Colonel Ávila, quoted literally, “for the extrajudicial execution of several people in different places of the department of Antioquia”.

Diego Luis Villegas placeholder image

In March 2008, Diego Luis Villegas, current general of the army and who has cases pending before the courts for extrajudicial killings, of which at least 6, five of which have their own names, as El Espectador announced in 2018: Didier Durant Badillo, Andrés Hernández Roldán, an unidentified man in Barbosa, Antioquia; Adrián Álvarez González, in the San Cristóbal district of Medellín; Albeiro Tobón Marulanda, a peasant who died “while going with his minor daughter to work in the fields,” said the prosecution.

But the one who had the military high command against the ropes is the case of Ómer Alcides Villada on March 25, 2008. That day, five members of his military unit killed a man “in combat” in the village of Palmitas, in the municipality of Montebello, Antioquia. However, after the events, it was learned that Villada was a farmer who lived with his grandmother since he was a “person with mental disabilities.“, As reported by the prosecutor’s office. For these soldiers, the victim belonged to the 34th Farc front.

Villegas’ alleged responsibility rests on the fact that he signed, as the commander of the Pedro Nel Ospina battalion, document 01325 with which he demanded payment of 1,500,000 pesos from an informant who helped the army identify the guerrillas or criminal gangs in Palmitas and Sierra Morena. But the alleged informant, in front of the prosecution, denied his relationship with the army, claiming that he had not even lived in the area where he allegedly carried out his activities, and also declared himself displaced. The military’s response to the doubts the accusing body raised about how they accused Villada of being a guerrilla was questionable.

They explained in a document published on August 12, 2014 that Omer Alcides was not in the intelligence files, but that “The aim was to clarify that members of illegal armed groups constantly change their pseudonyms in order to avoid being identified.“In addition, police in a document sent to the prosecutor’s office on August 5, 2014, said the man had no history. For this reason, the accusing entity issued an arrest warrant against Villegas Muñoz in 2018, but it was suspended for a while because in February of that year, the former commander signed his submission to the special peace jurisdiction. Finally, the Court declared itself inhibited during the examination of the case when it raised a possible conflict of jurisdiction. So far, no progress has been made in this process.

The crimes for which they are indicated are the homicide of a protected person, the manufacture, trafficking or carrying of a firearm and the embezzlement of funds by appropriation, this before the Eighth Criminal Court for the control of guarantees to Bogotá.

On the other hand, in 2019, before the assassination of veteran Dimar Torres at the hands of an army soldier, who commanded the Task Force Vulcano to which the person in charge belonged, was precisely Diego Luis Villegas. This is why on April 28, 2019, he apologized for the Catatumbo incident, an act that was rejected by then Defense Minister Guillermo Botero, claiming that this statement did not speak for the sake of it. military forces. That day, they reminded him again that ten years after the events in Antioquia, the courts had not been able to prosecute him. In 2020, Villegas formed the Future Army Transformation Command (Cotef), responsible for restructuring the military forces. When visiting the army website, the information of this command appears under repair.

For 2008, the JEP Recognition Chamber reported at least 12 cases of death due to extrajudicial killings in this battalion for a total of 185 in eight years.

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