False positive (2008)

Extrajudicial executions in Colombia

False positives’ refers to the Colombian army’s alleged institutionalized practice of executing civilians and then presenting them as rebels killed in combat. The soldiers then claimed credit for the “kills” and received weekend passes and other benefits. The scandal burst open on October 2008, with the discovery in northeastern Colombia of the bodies of a score of young men who had disappeared from Soacha, a poor town in the outskirts of Bogota. The men had been buried in common graves as if they were guerrillas killed in combat.
In early 2009 the Attorney General’s Office had 716 cases under investigation related to possible “false positives” and the justice department had 943 cases.

These young men were criminals … “were not just picking coffee on a farm”

President Alvaro Uribe,Uribe

Tuesday, September 8 2008. Press conference on false positives, Bogotá, Colombia.