The JEP set for June 27 the hearing in which eight members of the National Army will publicly accept their responsibility for participating in the execution of war crimes and crimes against humanity for disappearing and murdering 47 people between 2002 and 2006 who They were presented as combat casualties and buried in the Las Mercedes cemetery, in Dabeiba, in Antioquia.
Colonel Efraín Enrique Prada Correa, former commander of the Counterguerrilla Battalion No. 79; Deputy First Sergeant Hernando Cómbita Salazar (BCG 79); Edie Pinzón Turcios, former commander of the Arhuacos Counterguerrilla Battalion No. 26 (BCG 26) and two retired majors: Yair Leandro Rodríguez Giraldo (BCG 26) and Hermes Mauricio Alvarado Sáchica (BCG 79).
Likewise, three retired BCG 79 sergeants: William Andrés Capera Vargas, Fidel Iván Ochoa Blanco and Jaime Coral Trujillo and a retired professional soldier from BCG 79: Levis de Jesús Contreras Salgado. The hearing will take place within the framework of the national macro case (03), which investigates the formerly called ‘false positives’, with the territorial case (04) that prioritized the Urabá region of Antioquia and Choco.
In the presence of victims’ organizations that have participated in the investigative process of the JEP, State institutions and civil society, those most responsible must go from the written acknowledgment that they delivered to the JEP magistracy, to a public one before the courts, victims and Colombian society.
According to the order for the determination of facts and conduct in the emblematic case of Dabeiba, the vast majority were young men in a situation of vulnerability, between the ages of 20 and 35, and their corpses were hidden in municipal cemeteries to prevent their identification. The Chamber also found representative facts of this pattern in 1997 in Dabeiba, with the participation of the troops of the Infantry Battalion No, 10 ‘Coronel Atanasio Girardot’.
In the proceeding, the appearing parties will publicly acknowledge the truth and responsibility before the next of kin of the victims, who will also participate in a space to which the accompanying organizations were also linked, as well as the local, regional and national State institutions. and international to support and shield the restorative process that began in December 2022.
Over the course of 7 months, a group of professional experts from the JEP works on the preparation of the Public Recognition Hearing, both with victims and those appearing. This is a process that leads to achieving that the diligence publicly seals a commitment for the future between those who suffered the damage, those who caused it and society in general, for the restoration of the fractured social fabric in Dabeiba and, by connection, in Medellín, Ituango and Turbo.