By Patrick Vanderpool
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America
BOGOTA, Colombia – Jorge Ivan Laverde, a former Colombian paramilitary chief who confessed to ordering approximately 4,000 murders and using an oven to dispose of some of the bodies, was sentenced to eight years in prison.
Laverde, who turned himself in six years ago, led one of the fronts of the right-wing AUC militia federation’s Catatumbo Bloc.
Laverde was originally sentenced to 40 years in prison but his sentence was reduced as part of an amnesty law passed by the Colombian Congress in 2005. Last week, Laverde was resentenced to the maximum prison term allowable under the law governing the paramilitaries’ demobilization. He was also ordered to pay $3.2 million in reparation to the victims.
The 2005 Peace and Justice Law was passed to regulate the paramilitary fighters’ reinsertion into society. Former AUC members face a maximum of eight years in prison if convicted of any of the egregious crimes which they are accused of, including kidnappings, murders and torture. The law also shields former AUC members from extradition to the United States so long as they cooperate with Colombian authorities.
In Laverde’s case, the former paramilitary leader not only confessed that he ordered some 4,000 killings but he also admitted that he personally carried out 100 of those murders.
The AUC demobilized 31,000 fighters between the end of 2003 and mid-2006 as part of a peace process with then-President Alvaro Uribe. However, new members have emerged, bringing the group’s numbers somewhere in the range of 4,000-10,000 fighters. Although the AUC was originally founded to battle leftist rebels, it deteriorated into a “loose association of drug-dealing death squads.”
The aim of the amnesty law was to promote the demobilization of paramilitary groups through promises of relatively insignificant prison sentences. Nonetheless, the notion of an eight year prison sentence for a man thought to have participated in thousands of killings may very well result in a public outcry.
For more information, please see:
The Herald Sun – Eight Years Jail for Man who Killed 4,000 – 4 December 2010
BBC – Colombia Reduces Jail Time for Paramilitary in Amnesty – 3 December 2010
Colombia Reports – “El Iguano” Convicted Through Justice of Peace Process – 3 December 2010
Latin American Herald Tribune – Ex-Militia Chief Sentenced Under Colombia’s Demobilization Law – 3 December 2010
