Colombia: first trial of FARC, their leader asks "pardon"

Bogotá – Former FARC leader Rodrigo Londoño, known as "Tymoshenko", has asked "pardon" for the victims of the abductions of the Marxist guerrillas, during the first trial opened on Friday of the guerrilla leaders, provided for by the peace agreement of 2016.
  

" We ask forgiveness from all (the victims), we will do the impossible so that they can know the truth about what happened, we will take responsibility ", said Rodrigo Londono, after the first day of the trial in Bogota of the leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Following the peace agreement signed with the government in 2016 in Havana, the FARC have since converted last year into a political party, keeping the same acronym.

The former guerrillas, who pledged to account for their crimes and to compensate their victims, are prosecuted for 6,162 cases of kidnappings, committed between 1993 and 2012, among which that of the French-Colombian Ingrid Betancourt, sequestered for six years until released by the army on July 2, 2008.

Justice summoned 31 former guerrilla leaders on charges of " illegal detention of persons ".

Only Tymoshenko, Londono's war name, and Pablo Catatumbo and Carlos Lozada, two other former FARC leaders, went to trial, the other defendants having sent their lawyers.

They all live at liberty, except for Jesús Santrich – another former US-detained drug trafficker – who has spoken by videoconference from his prison.

If they respect the agreement signed with the Colombian government and abandon all violence, the former members of the guerrilla, which became a political party, will serve shorter sentences ranging from five to eight years in an alternative place. in jail.

" I am here at your disposal, deeply moved to see the way in which the dream we built in Havana ", where the agreement that ended more than 50 years conflict was concluded, said Tymoshenko.

Nearly 7,000 guerrillas have since laid down their arms, and the newly created Revolutionary Common Alternative Force will have 10 deputies in parliament from 20 July.

The peace agreement, however, still deeply divides Colombia, with some victims demanding first the truth about the abductions of their loved ones and their fate, before any clemency of justice.