Retired Colombian General Mario Montoya Uribe​

Bogota, August 1 (RHC)-- Colombia's Attorney General, Francisco Barbosa, announced Saturday that former Army General Mario Montoya will be held accountable for allegedly participating in 104 extrajudicial executions, including those of five minors.

The charges against the retired general are part of the false positive massacres, killings carried out by commandos of the Military Forces against the civilian population that were reported as combat casualties from November 2007 to November 2008.

According to the investigations, Montoya, during that period, would have encouraged awards to his subordinates for the number of casualties reported in the operations, thus ignoring Directive 300-28 issued by the General Commander of the Military Forces on November 20, 2007, in which he prioritized demobilization over captures or deaths in combat as an operational result.

In 2018, Montoya disavowed his involvement in the massacres and voluntarily subordinated himself to the investigation of those crimes being developed by the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), a legal body created under the Peace Agreement in 2016.

The Attorney General's Office reports that Montoya, who was commander of the National Army between 2006 and 2008, will be charged with aggravated homicide.

The lawyer of the victims of false positives before the JEP, Sebastián Escobar, explained that first the request for indictment will be addressed to the Supreme Court of Justice and once there the hearing can be agreed.

Both Escobar and international human rights organizations have considered the decision of the Prosecutor's Office as an advance towards access to justice and truth for the families of the victims of false positives in Colombia.