The former FARC guerrillas admitted their responsibility in six assassinations, including that of Alvaro Gomez, several times a presidential candidate and killed in 1995 in Bogota, in a letter sent to a special court for peace.
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Justice for Peace (JEP), which is investigating crimes committed during the conflict between the ex-guerrillas and the government, said in a statement on Saturday that the letter it received on September 30 purported to "
say the truth, clarify the facts and take responsibility
”in several assassinations.
Among these, in addition to that of Alvaro Gomez, on November 2, 1995, are those of a retired general, Fernando Landazabal, in 1998, and of the former peace adviser, Jesus Antonio Bejarano in 1999.
This revelation caused noise in Colombia, where the thesis according to which Alvaro Gomez, a figure of the Conservative Party and three times presidential candidate, had been targeted by political rivals allied with the military and drug traffickers, had hitherto been accredited.
The letter is signed by former rebel commanders Julian Gallo, Pastor Alape and Pablo Catatumbo.
Two of them, Julian Gallo and Pablo Catatumbo, now sit in the Colombian parliament, as part of the peace accords signed in 2016 that ended a nearly six-decade armed conflict between the former rebellion and the government.
The Marxist guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), once the most powerful in America, laid down their arms and transformed into a political party.
As part of the 2016 agreement, its main leaders pledged to confess their crimes before the Justice for Peace and to compensate the victims or their families, in exchange for alternative sentences to prison.
If they do not keep their commitment, they will be brought before ordinary justice.