Colombian soldiers killed civilians for rebels during the Colombian conflict

Eleven Colombian ex-soldiers are speaking out about extrajudicial killings committed by the army during the country’s armed war.

They are attending a public session of the special court, which is investigating crimes committed during the conflict.

An investigation last year revealed that around 6,400 civilians were killed by the military and wrongly identified as hostile combatants between 2002 and 2008.

However, this is the first time that those involved have provided detailed details.

“We murdered innocent people, farmers,” former soldier Néstor Gutiérrez told relatives of victims.

A hundred relatives attended Tuesday’s session of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) court, which was established as part of a 2016 peace agreement negotiated by left-wing rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) and the Colombian government.

“It’s not easy being here,” Mr. Gutiérrez said. “I executed, I killed the relatives of those who are here.”

The former soldier recalled how he had lured civilians “through lies and deceit” to the places where he had “shot them, cruelly killing them”.

Mr. Gutiérrez was one of six former military personnel who testified on the first day of the hearing on Tuesday. Five more are scheduled to be released on Wednesday.

The six admitted to killing at least 120 civilians in the Catatumbo region of eastern Colombia between 2007 and 2008 and passing them off as war casualties.

At the hearing, relatives of the victims also spoke. One of them was Soraida Navarro. Her father, Jess, was slain by soldiers 15 years ago, and the location of his body is unknown.

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