Overview
- The Special Jurisdiction for Peace sentenced 12 former military personnel to up to eight years of non-custodial reparative work for their roles in 135 killings recorded as combat deaths.
- Sanctions require building memorials and community centers in Caribbean Indigenous communities, with defendants’ movement restricted to those project sites.
- The ruling covers the La Popa Battalion subcase from 2002 to 2005 within a broader investigation that has documented at least 6,402 victims between 2002 and 2008.
- Three higher-ranking officers, including ex-commander Publio Hernán Mejía, denied responsibility and face adversarial trials that could bring prison terms of up to 20 years, with Mejía’s case awaiting a verdict after hearings closed in August.
- Victims’ families criticized the non-custodial penalties as too lenient, as the tribunal accelerates cases that this week also produced sentences against former FARC leaders for wartime abuses.