BOGOTÁ, Colombia — A special court in Colombia has charged a general and other top military leaders with crimes against humanity, accusing them of assassinating 120 civilians and presenting the victims as combat casualties in a bid to show the country was winning its long civil war. The indictments are the first in which Colombia’s special peace court, created by a 2016 agreement between the country’s government and its largest rebel group, has held anyone accountable for the killings, which erupted into public view in 2008 and became known as the “false positives” scandal. The scandal has emerged as emblematic of the country’s decades-long internal conflict, a painful symbol of the way civilians were not just accidental casualties in a war between left-wing guerrillas, paramilitaries and the military — but sometimes targets of all three groups. Hundreds of members of the military were convicted in the scandal by the country’s regular court system but were later released under the 2016 peace accord, which transferred jurisdiction of their cases to the special peace court.

Source: New York Times July 06, 2021 19:07 UTC