Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 16 december 2011 / Time Line December 16, 2011
Version 3.515. December 2011, 17. December 2011
12/16/2011
"Godfather" of Colombian Army Intelligence Acquitted in Palace of Justice Case
Gen. Iván Ramírez Led Unit that "Tortured and Killed" Palace of Justice Detainees in 1985
"Infamous" Commander "was "Passing Military Intelligence to the Paramilitaries," according to U.S. Ambassador
Washington, D.C. , December 16, 2011 - A Colombian army general acquitted today in one of the country's most infamous human rights cases "actively" collaborated with paramilitary death squads responsible for dozens of massacres, according to formerly secret U.S. records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archive.
Once the third-highest-ranking officer in the Colombian military and later a top adviser to President Álvaro Uribe's Department of Administrative Security (DAS), Iván Ramírez Quintero was acquitted today in the torture and disappearance of Irma Franco, one of several people detained by the army during the November 1985 Palace of Justice disaster.
The exoneration comes despite substantial evidence, including declassified U.S. embassy cables, linking Ramírez to the disappearances. Among the documents are reports that the missing individuals were "tortured and killed" by members of the Charry Solano Brigade, the unit led by Ramírez at that time.
Two former senior army officers, Col. Alfonso Plazas Vega and Gen. Jesús Armando Arias Cabrales, have already been convicted in the Palace of Justice disaster and remain the only people sentenced in the now more than 25-year-old case. More than 100 people, including 11 Supreme Court justices, perished during military operations to retake the Palace of Justice from M-19 insurgents who seized the building in November 1985. A document previously published by the Archive blamed "soldiers under the command of Col. Alfonso Plazas Vega" for the deaths of individuals detained by the army following the raid.
The declassified file on Gen. Iván Ramírez Quintero, the so-called "godfather of army intelligence," portrays him as a shrewd and corrupt spymaster who shared sensitive intelligence with illegal militia groups, cultivated relationships with drug traffickers and notorious paramilitary figures, and engaged in "scare tactics" to take down his political enemies.
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