Overview

• Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace convicted 12 former soldiers, including two ex-colonels, for 135 murders and forced disappearances from 2002 to 2005 in cases where civilians were falsely presented as combat kills.
• The sentences replace prison with eight years of supervised community service, including building memorials and community centers in Caribbean localities near the Venezuela border where the units operated.
• The court noted the killings were used to inflate counterinsurgency statistics in exchange for benefits to troops, a scheme at the heart of the ‘false positives’ scandal documented in at least 6,402 cases from 2002 to 2008.
• Earlier this week, seven former Farc leaders received eight-year restorative penalties for responsibility in more than 21,000 kidnappings, inaugurating the court’s first definitive rulings under the 2016 peace accord.
• Some victims, including Ingrid Betancourt, denounced the outcomes as too lenient and signaled they may seek recourse before international bodies such as the International Criminal Court.