Colombia tries former "Best Soldier of the Americas" for 72 homicides

by Adriaan Alsema
September 18, 2024

The prosecution of Colombia’s war crimes tribunal JEP formally charged retired army Colonel Publio Hernan Mejia with 72 extrajudicial executions carried out under his command.

According to the prosecution, Meija and his subordinates teamed up with the now-defunct paramilitary organization AUC to murder civilians and fraudulently present their victims as combat kills “to consolidate the image of being the best officer of the National Army.”

The extrajudicial executions took place in the region around the northern city of Valledupar between December 2001 and November 2003.

Publio Hernan Mejia Gutierrez devised, designed and executed through an Illegal Organized Apparatus of Power a criminal plan that consisted of murdering civilians and presenting them as casualties in combat, motivated by giving society a false perception of security and with which he sought to consolidate the image of being the best officer of the National Army.

Investigation and Accusation Unit of the JEP

More:
https://colombiareports.com/colombia-tries-former-best-soldier-of-the-americas-for-72-homicides/

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Earlier article:

Colombia Colonel Sentenced to 19 Years for Paramilitary Ties
by Charles Parkinson
10 Sep 2013



Colonel Publio Hernan Mejia

A former top army commander in Colombia has been sentenced to 19 years and six months in prison for ties to paramilitaries, only the second high-profile military official to be condemned for links which have engulfed many of the country’s elite.

Colonel Publio Hernan Mejia, who led the La Popa Battalion in the northern region of Valledupar between 2002 and 2004, was sentenced on September 9 for collaboration with paramilitaries and involvement in so-called “false positives” — the murder of civilians or extrajudicial killings reported as army combat kills.

According to the investigation, Mejia colluded with notorious paramilitary leader Rodrigo Tovar Pupo, alias “Jorge 40,” whose men joined Mejia’s troops on patrols and whose murders Mejia reported as combat kills, reported El Espectador.


. . .

The para-politics scandal has exposed the deep links between the country’s elites and paramilitary organizations, especially during Uribe’s 2000 to 2008 presidency, with Tovar himself a cattle rancher from an elite family in northern Colombia.

More:
https://insightcrime.org/news/brief/colombia-colonel-sentenced-to-19-years-for-paramilitary-ties/