The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) has requested to open an investigation into 16 Colombian Army officers for their possible links to paramilitary groups by facilitating the recruitment of demobilized FARC and Popular Liberation Army (EPL) guerrillas into the ranks of the Self-Defense Forces.
Among those to be investigated are Rito Alejo del Rio, a brigade commander between 1996 and 1997, who was sentenced in 2012 to 25 years in prison for the murder of social leader Marino Lopez, and Leonardo Barrero, a commander in the Armed Forces between 2013 and 2014, who Dairo Antonio Usuga, alias «Otoniel,» claims was a link between the paramilitaries and the army.
The JEP maintains that the laxity and permissiveness of the high command of the security forces allowed the strengthening of the paramilitary squads in the region of Urabá, in western Colombia, reports the newspaper ‘El Espectador’.
The conclusions of the JEP are based on dozens of documents and statements, including those of ‘Otoniel’ himself and other paramilitary leaders such as Elkín Casarrubia, alias ‘El Cura’, who tell how they themselves, among others, left the guerrillas to later join these armed groups, with the connivance of the military.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
