Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) has refused to include retired general Miguel Maza Márquez in its special legislation for lying about his links to paramilitary groups and the possibility remains that he could be prosecuted for the murder of members of the Patriotic Union (UP).
Maza Márquez, former director of the controversial and now disbanded Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (DAS), seriously breached his obligation to tell the truth about his relationship with paramilitaries and his involvement in the assassination of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán, according to the JEP.
Following the JEP’s ‘no’, his conviction for criminal association issued by the Supreme Court in November 2016 remains in force. According to that ruling, Maza Márquez, by not acting against the Autodefensas Campesinas del Magdalena Medio, allowed them to carry out orders from Pablo Escobar’s Medellín Cartel to assassinate Galán, a presidential candidate for the Liberal Party, in 1989.
This criminal association, the JEP recalls, was promoted by Maza Márquez as director of the DAS, since the members of the Autodefensas Campesinas del Magdalena Medio «were not persecuted by that security agency and were allowed to move freely in the areas where they operated.
«In addition, the arrival of foreign instructors was facilitated to train their members; DAS personnel were sent to the training camps of these self-defense groups», which also transferred the perpetrator of the attack –Jaime Rueda Rocha–, once it was consummated, to the areas where this illegal armed group had its base of operations.
At the same time, the JEP has indicated that the investigation continues into Maza Márquez’s participation in the extermination of members and sympathizers of the Patriotic Union, a left-wing political formation that was depleted during the 1980s and 1990s. Those murders, considered against humanity by the Colombian Prosecutor’s Office, have their own process within the JEP, case 06.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
