In Colombia, ‘false positives’ ruling paves the way for new convictions

In the early 2000s, a scandal broke in Colombia when it was revealed that military officers were carrying out summary executions of innocent civilians and listing them as guerrillas killed in combat.

These so-called “false positives” took place in different regions of the country between 2002 and 2008 and were used as proof of performance by military units and to collect “kill fees” awarded by the then-government of president Álvaro Uribe.

After eight years of investigation by Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), the tribunal issued its first ruling on Thursday, sanctioning 12 mid-level commanders. However, three higher-ranking officers remain under investigation; they represent the top command level of the La Popa Infantry Battalion in Valledupar, where the killings cited in this week’s ruling took place.

Unlike the 12 sanctioned officers — who were in command when 127 civilians were killed and presented as combat casualties — the three retired colonels did not acknowledge responsibility.

Several testimonies indicate that, in addition to medals, the battalion awarded leave, cash, and special meals “in recognition of their results.” The three officers face a standard trial, with both defense and prosecution, which could result in sentences of up to 20 years in prison.

This first ruling is only one of several sub-cases, which together involve 50 times as many victims — 6,402 in total.

Publio Hernán Mejía, the convicted commander

One of the most notorious names in the La Popa Battalion “false positives” scandal is Publio Hernán Mejía, a retired colonel who was sentenced in 2013 by the Attorney General’s Office to 19 years in prison for links to paramilitary groups while commanding that military unit between 2002 and 2003.

When the Special Jurisdiction for Peace began operating in 2017, it took over all active or past cases involving military personnel and ex-guerrillas, annulled previous sentences, and launched an independent investigation.

That same year, while Mejía joined the JEP, he received a second sentence in the regular criminal courts: 39 years in prison for homicide of a protected person and conspiracy to commit crimes, for allowing false positives to occur under his command.

When his case was accepted by the JEP, he received conditional release. Outside prison, he ran as a presidential pre-candidate in 2022, leading an openly Uribista retired military movement called Primero la Patria (The Homeland First. He promoted his book Me niego a arrodillarme (I Refuse to Kneel), marched against the candidacy of current president Gustavo Petro, and launched a YouTube channel encouraging votes for Senator María Fernanda Cabal, now a far-right presidential aspirant.

In 2023, the JEP revoked his conditional release, arguing that although he had joined the tribunal promising to tell the truth and assume responsibility, he continued to legitimize his crimes and deny established facts. Since then, he has returned to a military prison. This court has documented that at least 73 extrajudicial executions were carried out under his command in a single year, and subordinates have even confessed that he instructed them to fabricate combat scenarios.

Former colonel Heber Hernán Gómez has repeatedly recounted Mejía’s response, according to him, whenever a soldier raised concerns that the killings were illegal: “Brother: they were bandits, and they had to die, got it?” His case is the furthest along in the JEP process. The adversarial trial concluded on August 5, and now only the tribunal’s sentence remains, which, if it confirms his responsibility, could sentence him to 20 years in prison.

The other colonels in denial

The cases of Juan Carlos Figueroa Suárez and José Pastor Ruiz Mahecha are less high-profile but similar to Mejía’s. Figueroa replaced Mejía as commander of the La Popa Battalion, leading it from 2004 to 2005. Although he has no convictions in the regular criminal courts, when he submitted to the JEP he faced at least three preliminary investigations by the Attorney General’s Office for homicide of a protected person — the technical category for “false positives” — including one that could carry a sentence of up to 60 years. Before the rulings were issued, the JEP accepted him because he committed to providing the truth and acknowledging his crimes.

However, like Mejía, he has denied responsibility for the crimes that may have occurred under his command. According to the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia, 52 false positives were committed during his tenure, almost all involving members of the Wiwa and Kankuamo Indigenous peoples. Since he has not been imprisoned or detained, Figueroa was located by the JEP in the United Arab Emirates until late 2024, from where he has filed several appeals attempting to prevent the adversarial trial and avoid a 20-year sentence.

José Pastor Ruiz Mahecha faces a different scenario. He served as head of the Intelligence section and later as head of Operations for the Trueno and Zarpazo platoons — two units notorious within the battalion for their operational “successes” and high number of combat casualties. According to the JEP, members of these subgroups committed most of the unit’s false positives. Under Ruiz’s leadership, they reported at least 54 combat deaths that were actually civilian murders presented as guerrillas.

In the regular courts, Ruiz has already been sentenced in two cases. In 2013, the Attorney General’s Office found him guilty and sentenced him to 39 years for homicide of a protected person, for the civilian killings under his command. Six years later, another court convicted him of conspiracy to commit crimes, citing the same irregularities during his command. Since these cases were related to the Colombian conflict, the JEP took over the cases and attempted to have the colonel contribute by acknowledging his crimes and telling the truth — but he has refused to appear before this tribunal, and has remained in prison since 2019.

Ruiz has even filed several legal actions attempting to return his case to the ordinary courts and remove it from the JEP. However, under the Peace Agreement, the JEP is the natural judge for those responsible for crimes committed in the context of the armed conflict. Despite his refusal to participate in his trial, other soldier testimonies have implicated him. One testified in 2022 that during a battalion engagement, an ELN guerrilla was wounded and tried to receive first aid, as required by International Humanitarian Law. According to the testimony, Ruiz prevented the soldier from complying with protocol and ordered him to execute the guerrilla at point-blank range.

For now, these cases are progressing through the trial phase alongside other cases, including that of retired General Mario Montoya Uribe, former commander-in-chief of the Army until 2008 under the Álvaro Uribe Vélez government, the highest-ranking official investigated by the JEP for accountability as a commander. In fact, his departure from the Military Forces was precisely due to the false positives scandal. His honest account of events and sentence remain the missing piece in the extensive puzzle of the history of extrajudicial executions.

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