Montoya, the highest-ranking navy officer to be accused in what’s often called the false positives scandal, has denied ordering extrajudicial killings. His lawyer declined to remark Wednesday.
Montoya demanded outcomes from his troopers — particularly fight killings — “in any respect prices,” the tribunal mentioned in court docket paperwork.
The indictment launched Wednesday is a brand new step within the years-long effort to carry Colombia’s armed forces accountable in one of many darkest moments within the nation’s fashionable historical past. An estimated 6,402 Colombians — males, ladies and youngsters, lots of them unemployed and poor, a few of them disabled — had been killed from 2002 to 2008 by troopers who claimed they had been conflict casualties, in line with the Particular Jurisdiction for Peace. After their deaths, their our bodies had been typically wearing enemy gear and posed with weapons.
Courts and tribunals right here have dominated that the extrajudicial killings had been against the law in opposition to humanity. The peace tribunal, fashioned in 2017 as a part of the nation’s peace deal to finish 50 years of conflict with the FARC, has charged 62 navy officers, together with three generals, and civilians over their alleged roles within the killings. Fifty-five of them have accepted accountability and pleaded responsible in trade for diminished punishments.
Montoya led the Fourth Brigade from January 2002 to December 2003. Throughout that point, he allegedly fostered a tradition of competitors amongst items to advertise extra killing. That led troopers to kill harmless individuals and stage fight that by no means occurred, the peace tribunal mentioned.
Montoya rewarded troopers who complied along with his orders, the tribunal mentioned, and threatened to kick those that didn’t out of the military.
The indictment additionally names eight of Montoya’s subordinates as defendants. Lots of them informed the peace tribunal of feeling intimidated by the overall and pressured to kill civilians and current them as conflict casualties.
Montoya led the military at a essential time within the battle, when the US was pouring cash into the Colombian armed forces to assist the nation struggle narcotrafficking and arranged crime. Between 1999 and 2005, Colombia obtained $3.78 billion from Washington by Plan Colombia, a war-on-drugs effort initiated below President Invoice Clinton and expanded below President George W. Bush.
After Congress authorised funding for the initiative, the Colombian military started to make use of the casualty numbers as an indicator of success, the peace tribunal says.
By the point Montoya joined the Fourth Brigade, Plan Colombia had already led to a drastic shift inside the armed forces. Antioquia, the area he oversaw, was below fixed assault by the FARC and different guerrilla teams. Kidnappings and killings occurred every day.
Then-President Álvaro Uribe, elected on a promise to impose an iron fist in opposition to guerrilla teams, named Montoya as military chief in 2006. Montoya labored carefully with the US and was credited with serving to flip the tide of the battle in opposition to the FARC.
Maybe most famously, he was one of many chief orchestrators of Operation Jaque, the 2008 mission through which the Colombian military liberated 15 hostages, together with presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, who had been held by the FARC. {A photograph} of the overall elevating a fist beside Betancourt after her rescue was broadly circulated in Colombia because the nation celebrated the victory.
Months later, the false positives scandal got here to mild, the United Nations despatched a particular rapporteur to the nation and Uribe eliminated Montoya and different navy officers from their roles. Uribe named Montoya ambassador to the Dominican Republic, the place Montoya remained till 2011.
Prosecutors in 2021 requested homicide fees in opposition to Montoya. However a prison court docket dominated that the overall would must be charged within the Particular Peace Jurisdiction.
Montoya now has two choices: If he cooperates with the court docket and accepts accountability for his alleged crimes, he could possibly be topic to 5 to eight years of restrictive measures, comparable to home arrest. In any other case he can go to trial and, if convicted, probably be sentenced to as much as 20 years in jail.
Victims of these killed within the false positives case have waited years to see Montoya held accountable. However Wednesday’s indictment left some unhappy.
“This indictment is barely about one area, one battalion, a minimal interval. It’s a restricted investigation that raises critical questions,” says German Romero, a lawyer representing victims within the false positives case.
Romero criticized the peace court docket for not asking authorities to research different distinguished leaders, particularly Uribe, who was president all through the interval of the false positives scandal.
Uribe has mentioned repeatedly that he didn’t play a task in ordering the extrajudicial killings of civilians whereas in workplace. He has denied each accusation in opposition to his administration in connection to the case.
In Could, the relations of the 130 individuals killed in Antioquia, allegedly below Montoya’s management, spoke on to the previous common. Certainly one of them was Gloria López, the mom of 13-year-old Erika Castañeda, who was killed in 2002.
“You invited the media and gave a information convention testifying that they had been from” the FARC, López informed Montoya. “Scoundrel. They had been lies. They had been kids.”
“My daughter was a pupil, she needed to be a dentist to provide us a greater future,” she mentioned. “You condemned me to dwell with out her.”
