Élmer Fernández, retired lieutenant colonel of the National Police, would flip 58 subsequent Monday, May 20. An assault by hitmen thwarted the celebration of the uniformed man from Piendamó, Cauca. His final days weren’t peaceable. Although he had barely been in his new job as director of Bogotá’s La Modelo jail for a month, he had already acquired demise threats in opposition to his household. This penitentiary, with capability for two,900 inmates however housing greater than 5,000, is likely one of the largest within the nation and has been the scene of violent episodes, which painting the disaster of the jail system. For instance, one in all Fernández’s predecessors within the place, William Gacharná, acknowledged earlier than the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) that graves had been dug within the corridors of the detention heart to vanish our bodies; and, in 2020, a riot left 24 lifeless. Now added to this listing of occasions is the homicide of Fernández, a police officer with nearly 4 many years of expertise.
In January 1985, at solely 19 years previous, Élmer Fernández joined the National Police. In the establishment he would final a little bit greater than twenty years, climbing the hierarchy. However, in 2009, his regular progress was lower quick. The board answerable for defining promotions from the rank of lieutenant colonel to colonel determined to not advocate him for the place. Fernández demanded that call and after seven years he received. Thus, in 2016, he was reinstated as lieutenant colonel and some months later the board determined, once more, to not name him for promotion. Despite him profitable a guardianship to overturn that refusal, within the meantime the Minister of Defense of the time, Luis Carlos Villegas, determined to take away him from the police. That was why he completely left the service in 2017.
Throughout these years he studied an undergraduate diploma in Business Administration, a specialization in Human Resources and a grasp’s diploma in Security. He held completely different positions: he was commander of citizen safety of the National Police within the division of Boyacá, he was head of the outpost of the Presidency of the Republic and directed the Carabineros School of Vélez, Santander.
In 2012, throughout his interval exterior the Police, he was concerned in a judicial course of that sought to find out the legality of the acquisition he product of an expensive condominium that beforehand belonged to Carlos Castaño, high chief of the paramilitaries grouped within the so-called United Self-Defense Forces. of Colombia (AUC). It was a property valued at 2,000 million pesos, round 1.1 million {dollars} on the time. Francisco Zuluaga, alias Gordolindo, a drug trafficker who tried to pose as a paramilitary in 2005 to learn from transitional justice and thus evade extradition to the United States, included it on a listing of greater than 20 properties that may very well be used to compensate the victims. Fernández, who had beforehand bought the condominium, judicially opposed shedding the condominium and the matter escalated to the Supreme Court of Justice.
The ruling, which had been opposed to the lieutenant colonel within the first occasion, was ratified by the justices of the excessive courtroom. In a 40-page resolution they resolved that Fernández didn’t act diligently when buying the condominium, which was burdened by tax money owed and precautionary measures, and that completely different irregularities had been recognized within the buy and sale course of. “The factual actuality confirmed a authorized scenario completely different from that mirrored within the registry of public devices (…) which was simply noticeable by anybody with a minimal of prudence and diligence that Messrs. Élmer Fernández and Delia Mejía didn’t present. [esposa]. For this purpose, the latter can’t be thought-about as third-party purchasers in good religion exempt from fault,” the ruling reads.
After completely hanging up his uniform, like lots of his colleagues, Fernández entered the Inpec (National Penitentiary and Prison Institute), answerable for finishing up the sentences and safety measures imposed by felony judges and guarding the prisons. Since 2020 he was director of the La Esperanza jail, in Guaduas, Cundinamarca, a comparatively latest heart (inaugurated in 2011), medium safety and that may obtain 2,800 inmates. Last January, an inmate on the place denounced the existence of a community made up of guards and convicts for the smuggling of meals and drinks. The newspaper El Tiempo additionally reported that since October 2023 there was data of the alleged management that some inmates exercised over some pavilions of the detention heart, violating all those that didn’t observe their orders. On the topic, Fernández responded: “The institution has taken measures pertinent to mentioned scenario, putting absolute emphasis on what was requested, guaranteeing the bodily and private integrity of the inhabitants disadvantaged of liberty that’s being violated.”
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The lieutenant colonel’s keep in Guaduas ended roughly a month in the past. From there he was despatched to Bogotá, to the Modelo jail. The hostile surroundings shortly manifested itself. An inmate who calls himself Pedro Pluma despatched him an intimidating message. “So you possibly can see that I do have energy and in the event that they switch me I’ll kill my household,” and it was dated May 9. Seven days later, armed males ended Fernández’s life.
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