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The Blanquicet case

EOn 22 September, 1993, in the Blanquicet municipal rural district of the municipality of Turbo, in the Urabá region of the department of Antioquia, members of the Colombian Army presumably killed Carlos-Manuel Prada and Evelio Bolaño, members of the demobilized guerrilla group Socialist Renovation Current -CRS-. The incident happened at a moment in which they were being "reinserted" -or admitted back into civilian life.

The criminal process was conducted by the military justice system. The defendants, a captain, a sergeant and a number of soldiers, were acquitted by a court-martial. The civil cases' party was requested that this decision be declared invalid for having been made outside jurisdiction and later, in 1998, applied for the process to be transferred from the military justice system to the ordinary system, in accordance with Constitutional Court Ruling C358 of 1997. The application was refused. An appeal was filed against this decision; the High Military Court affirmed it. The Human Rights Unit of the Office of the Prosecutor General requested the process to be assigned to it, on the grounds that the case is under its jurisdiction. A decision from the Supreme Judiciary Council is now pending.

Disciplinary proceedings conducted by the Attorney General's Office ended in 1998 with a formal request that those involved be removed and dismissed from the Armed Forces. The Attorney General turned down an application for this decision to be reversed. Evidence is now being produced and assessed in the case against the State. The case has been laid before the OAS' Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which has accepted a proposal for an out-of-court settlement, on condition that the criminal military investigation is transferred to the ordinary justice system .

Illegal Roadblock "lucky dip"
on the Llanos Road

On 24 March, 1998, at a place called Monterredondo, on the road from Bogotá to Villavicencio, the FARC's 53rd Front stopped all traffic for several hours at an illegal roadblock set up by them. The guerrillas put into practice a kidnapping system known as "Pesca Milagrosa" (lucky dip), in which they detain all travelers who happen to arrive at that point and then proceed to pick a number of them for kidnapping. Their release is subsequently negotiated. Over one hundred vehicles were stopped and 27 people were kidnapped, including three minors and a number of foreigners. Four peoples have been record as disappeared. Three people died and several more were injured in the ensuing confrontation between the guerrillas and the Army. The guerrillas released three days later nine people. Six more were set free through mediation, and another one managed to escape from their captors.

In the preliminary hearing on this case the members of the FARC's 53rd Front were linked to the process, among them Henry Castellanos-Garzón, alias "Romaña", Braulio González-Acosta and Blas-María Reyes-Beltrán. The latter surrendered to the Office of the Prosecutor General and was taken into custody at a military base. A Bogotá prosecutor ordered the arrest of those accused, charging them with a variety of crimes concurrently committed, including aggravated kidnapping for extortion, illegal carrying of weapons reserved for the armed forces, and aggravated homicide. "Romaña" was declared defendant in absentia and his arrest was ordered. The decisions were appealed against but were later affirmed in the second instance by the Attorney General's Office Delegate for the Higher District Court. Reyes was committed to prison .