Colombian Priest Who Ran Far-Right Militia Captured

By Ellis Cortez
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BOGOTA, Colombia – The Colombian Attorney General’s Office has announced the capture of a fugitive Catholic priest who was convicted in absentia last year of organizing a killer far-right militia made up of members of a dismantled paramilitary bloc.

Colombia nabs fugitive priest linked to criminal gangs
Gang members give their guns during a ceremony at a church in Medellin, Colombia. (Photo Courtesy of AFP Photo/Raul Arboleda)

After months-long search, Rev Oscar Albeiro Ortiz was arrested in the town of La Virginia, in the central-western province of Risaralda. The Colombian Army took part in the raid.

Ortiz, a former parish priest of a Roman Catholic Church in San Antonio de Prado, was arrested in 2010, but was cleared by a lower court and continued to maintain that he was innocent. This past August, Ortiz was retried and sentenced to 19 years in prison. The High Court in Medellin convicted him in absentia of giving orders to a group known as “Los Desmovilizados de El Limonar.”

Ortiz created the group in San Antonio de Prado in 2003. During this time, Ortiz had accompanied members of the paramilitary bloc and then recruited them after the bloc was ostensibly disbanded under a peace pact brokered by the government of then-president Alvaro Uribe. The group engaged in kidnappings, extortion, and murder.

Authorities say investigators using wiretaps had overheard Ortiz pointing out people as leftist rebels who later turned up murdered. People beaten or driven from their homes by paramilitary henchmen of Ortiz were told they were being punished “for disobeying the orders of the priest.”

The so-called paramilitaries, organized under the umbrella of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, committed more than 70% of the killings in the country’s nearly half-century-old dirty war, according to prosecutors.

The AUC, accused of committing numerous human rights violations, demobilized more than 31,000 of its fighters between the end of 2003 and mid-2006 as part of the peace process with the Uribe administration.

Under the terms of the 2005 Peace and Justice Law, former AUC members face a maximum of eight years in prison if convicted of any of the scores of massacres of suspected rebel sympathizers.

Their foes in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia are now engaged in peace talks with the government in Cuba.

For more information please see:

ABC News Colombian Priest Who Ran Far-Right Militia Nabbed 1 February 2014

The Guardian Catholic priest who ran right-wing death squad arrested in Colombia 31 January 2014

The Washington Post Colombian priest who ran far-right militia nabbed 31 January 2014

Fox News Priest captured who ran far-right death squad in Colombian suburb 31 January 2014

Al-Qaeda Forces Kill Rebel Leaders in Syria

By Darrin Simmons
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

DAMASCUS, Syria-A twin car bombing attack on near Syria’s northern city of Aleppo occurred Sunday morning.  The attack was led by Al Qaeda and targeted and killed their rival leader of the Islamic brigade.

Syrian troops advance into Aleppo (photo courtesy of Al Jazeera)

The attack occurred on the cuff of rebel fighting throughout the Syrian civil war, as government forces continue the intense bombarding of opposition-held areas.  Syrian aircrafts bombed buildings, which buried people underneath rubble near the Bab Neirab area.

The series of military aircraft droppings of explosives over rebel-held areas on Saturday killed dozens, including one attack that killed 34 people in al-Bab.  Activists have claimed the bombings have driven Syrian forces into the eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo.

The twin suicide bombing that killed the military leader of a rebel group also resulted in the death of 26 other people.  The attack targeted the Tawheed Brigades and killed Commander Adnan Bakkour.

Al-Qaeda also killed another prominent commander, Abu Hussein al-Dik of the Suqour al-Sham, further proving that key headquarters, strategic checkpoints, and senior influential commanders were being targeted.

On Saturday, a Lebanese extremist group claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing in a Shi’ite town that killed at least three people.  This attack was also linked to the Syrian civil war.

The bombing occurred in the northeast town of Hermel and was claimed to punish the Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah, which fights with the forces of Syria President Bashar Assad.  It is the third bombing that the Nusra Front in Lebanon has claimed responsibility.

Also on Sunday, a video was posted to social networks showing a Sunni fighter beheading another man and children and adults gathered to watch.

The video shows adults cheering as the fighter cuts the other man’s head off with a small knife.  The man’s hands are tied and it was unclear if he was alive during the beheading.  Photos of the body and severed head were also posted to a separate Instagram account by a supporter of al Qaeda.

For more information, please see the following:

Al Jazeera-Al-Qaeda fighters kill Syrian rebel leaders-2 February 2014

CBS News-Al Qaeda in Syria kills rival rebel leader-2 February 2014

Hindu-Al-Qaeda fighters kill rival rebel leader in Aleppo-2 February 2014

Los Angeles Times-Al Qaeda-linked rebel leader reported killed in Syria-2 February 2014