The Special Peace Jurisdiction (SPJ) Armando Farfán Suárez, a former FARC combatant known by the alias “Gafas” and who was jailer of former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt during her kidnapping, was excluded from that court for “manifest defection from the peace agreement.”
This, detailed the magistrate Ana Caterina Heyck during a benefit supervision hearing, because “Gafas” is “a manifest deserter of the peace agreement, inasmuch as he is a member of the illegal armed organization that calls itself the Central General Staff of the FARC”, the main guerrilla dissidence.
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Likewise, because he was designated by the EMC as “a representative member of that organization at the peace talks table with the Government.”
He also pointed out another factor that leaves no doubt that “Gafas” is part of that group is that he was arrested on December 11 of last year in a rural area of Buenaventura when “he was traveling with other members of the dissidents in speedboats and they held clashes with the armed forces.
For this reason, “the transitional benefits that had been granted are left without effect and it is ordered to send their processes to ordinary justice.”
In 2017, “Gafas” was released after submitting to the JEP after being captured on July 2, 2008 during “Operation Jaque”, along with Gerardo Aguilar, alias “Cesar”.
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This operation carried out by the Army allowed the rescue of Betancourt, three US contractors and 11 police and military officers who had been kidnapped by the FARC for years.
“Glasses” was also involved in the kidnapping of American contractors Thomas Howes, Keith Stansell, and Marc Gonsalves on February 12, 2013.