Colombian army must publicly apologize for 'false positive' murder
Colombian army must publicly apologize for 'false positive' murder
Tuesday, 10 January 2012 08:16
Aylish O'Driscoll
~snip~
Around midnight on May 21, 1994, soldiers arrived at the house of 25-year-old Alfredo Sierra Castilla in the town of Nechi, in the northwestern Colombian department of Antioquia. Castillo answered the door wearing white shorts, his friends in the house heard the words "hands up", and he was taken away. The friends reported the incident to the town's police inspector and the commander of the local military base, but were told that Alfredo had not been arrested by the military.
On the same night in Nechi, soldiers arrived at the house of Jairo Antonio Calis Sajayo, who lived with his mother. According to testimony from his mother Rosario Sajayo, they took him at gunpoint, barefoot and wearing blue shorts and a yellow bag, while he begged "Do not kill me please, I have not done anything." Over the following days, Jairo's father and a neighbor visited the local battalion several times, each time being told his whereabouts were unknown.
Five days after the kidnappings, Lieutenant Jose Mauricio Sanabria filed a report saying the men had been killed in combat in Palomar, Antioquia. Their bodies were returned to the families wearing military uniforms over the clothes they were wearing the night of their kidnapping, with their bodies showing signs of torture.
The Administrative Tribunal of Antioquia, in the late 1990's, concluded that the young men had not been kidnapped, and accepted the conclusions offered by the investigations of the military justice system.
More:
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/21437-colombian-army-must-publicly-apologize-for-false-positive-murder.html
