The Office of the Attorney General of the Nation formulated a statement of charges against seven soldiers belonging to the infantry battalion N°13, General Custodio García Rovirain Norte de Santander, for his alleged responsibility in the homicide of Joel Aguablanca Villamizarethno-educational leader of the U’wa indigenous community during an operation to capture the leader of the ELN, Darío Quiñónez Villamizar, alias “Marcial”.
The events occurred on June 2, 2020 on the sidewalk Colorado River, jurisdiction of Chitaga, North of Santanderfarm where he lived Aguablanca Villamizar with his wife, minor children and a brother-in-law with Down’s syndrome. On the afternoon of June 1, a group of five guerrillas heavily armed ELN soldiers, under the command of alias “Marcial”, arrived at the farm and forced those who lived there to allow them to spend the night.
Hours later, a command attached to the aforementioned army battalion arrived in the area to capture the guerrilla leader carrying out surveillance throughout the night and at dawn they decided to act by surrounding the house and approaching to do the captures, however one of the guerrillas noticed their presence and alerted the others, who They responded by opening fire. which unleashed the shooting in which the indigenous leader, alias Marcial, was discharged and wounded, who, despite having receivedfirst aid by the nurse Military unit, died an hour later while waiting for a helicopter to evacuate.
In his indictment, the Public ministry asserts that the military “incurred in a series of irregularities that triggered in the death of Joel Aguablanca Villamizar, a fact that could have been avoided if the objective for which the letter was issued had been fulfilled. operations order No. 013which consisted of the capture of aka Martial and the members of its commission.
The Attorney also determined that the indigenous man was not part of the armed group that remained in the house, “Aguablanca Villamizar He did not have weapons, he did not wear a uniform that would identify him as a member of some outlaw group and therefore did not respond to the attacks that would perpetrated by uniformed personnel; In addition to this, she was in the home of the parents of her sentimental partner. The above means that, she did not have the combatant status”, the document explains.
The disciplinary offense charged to the military was having substantially transgressed their functional duty for their alleged participation in the unjustified homicide of Joel Aguablanca Villamizar, who did not have the quality of combatant. Said conduct was provisionally classified as Serious Guilt by way of Deceit.