Former presidential candidate Álvaro Gómez Hurtado, in an image from May 1995, from the newspaper 'El Espectador' .- / AFP
In a surprise letter sent to Colombia's Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), the former FARC guerrilla - today turned into a political party after the peace agreement - admitted its participation in the assassination of former presidential candidate Álvaro Gómez Hurtado.
The killing of the conservative leader shook Colombians on November 2, 1995 and after several decades his family demands clarity about what happened.
In the letter, the members of the former FARC secretariat offer to "provide the truth, clarify the events that occurred and assume responsibility early" in five high-impact homicides between 1995 and 2002. The list includes the former conservative candidate, Álvaro Gómez Hurtado;
as well as those of Hernando Pizarro León-Gómez;
José Fedor Rey;
Jesús Antonio Bejarano;
the homicide of the retired general, Fernando Landazábal Reyes;
and the former representative to the Chamber, Pablo Emilio Guarín.
Specifically, the revelation about the murder of Gómez Hurtado has caused a stir.
President Iván Duque indicated doubts.
“That justice fulfill its task, but that it is not going to allow an attempt to obstruct the true responsibility behind that murder.
Because adjudicating those crimes when there are already guarantees that no one is going to pay jail does not stop generating doubts, suspicions, concerns, "said Duque and asked that" the claims made by the Gómez Hurtado family not be dismissed. "
For the President, the JEP must listen to the testimonies, but that the Prosecutor's Office follow the investigations and they are collated.
The news comes just two days after former leftist senator Piedad Córdoba said in the media that she had evidence about the perpetrators of the assassination.
The Cordoba escorts suffered a shooting attack and she denounced that she fears for her life.
Gómez Hurtado was a three-time presidential candidate for the Conservative party and owner of the newspaper
El Siglo
.
From there he was one of the biggest critics of former president Ernesto Samper, during the 8,000 process, the investigation into the income of money from the mafia to the presidency.
For years, the family of the murdered politician has connected Gómez Hurtado's complaints with his murder.
But other versions have indicated the alleged participation of paramilitaries and drug traffickers of the Norte del Valle cartel.
After the revelations of the defunct FARC, Samper expressed his surprise through a statement.
"Although we understand and support that this recognition be made within the framework of transitional justice, as a contribution to the truth, we hope to know the details of the manner, time and place, which the JEP will surely investigate, to make a definitive statement," he said. Samper speaking for him and his former Interior Minister, Horacio Serpa.
And he added that they have been "victims of insults and slander by the Gómez Hurtado family" and that this revelation also places them as "victims of the FARC's silence regarding their responsibility in this homicide."
The president of the JEP, Patricia Linares, reported on the receipt of the letter sent by the ex-guerrillas and said that "the process has just started in the Truth and Responsibility Acknowledgment Room, which is the competent one."
But at the same time, for this case there is an investigation in the ordinary courts, in which there are three police officers linked allegedly for hindering the work of the investigators.