The Colombian state asked for forgiveness on Tuesday before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to journalist Jineth Bedoya, victim in 2000 of kidnapping, rape and torture at the hands of paramilitaries with the complicity of law enforcement agents.
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The Director General of the National Agency for Legal Defense of the Colombian State, Camilo Gomez, has accepted
"international responsibility for the flaws in the judicial system"
and
"for the failure to respect the duty of care in the investigation of the threats »
Denounced by the journalist, Unesco World Press Freedom Prize 2020. Before the court, judicial entity of the Organization of American States (OAS), the State asked
« Jineth Bedoya's forgiveness for these facts and for the damage they caused him "
and
" recognizes that these omissions have violated his rights to dignity, to a life project, to personal integration, to guarantees and to judicial protection ",
added lawyer Camilo Gomez.
Jineth Bedoya was working for the newspaper El Espectador when a group of paramilitaries kidnapped her in front of La Modelo prison in Bogota, then tortured and raped her for 16 hours, before leaving her naked by the side of a road.
She was investigating a network of arms trafficking in this prison when she was kidnapped with the complicity of state agents, including an
"influential"
general of the police, according to her testimony.
The paramilitaries, some of whom have since been convicted, were part of far-right militias that fought left-wing guerrillas in Colombia, until their official demobilization in 2006.
Before his kidnapping, Jineth Bedoya and his mother Luz Nelly Lima had been the targets of an attack in 1999, in which the state also apologized
"for the lack of investigation of the attack"
.
"The damage caused to my mother and I for the violations suffered for more than twenty years and the impunity (...) did not allow us to end the cycle of violence and to recover our lives"
, denounced the journalist, who called for protective measures, as well as the closure of the prison and its transformation into a memory space.
The parties have until April 23 to present their final arguments in writing to the Court, which sits in San José, Costa Rica and whose decisions are final.
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