FROM THE FAMILIES OF THE DISAPPEARED FROM THE PALACE OF JUSTICE
Esteemed Colombian and Foreign Journalists:
A cordial greeting.
The families of those disappeared in the Holocaust of the Hall of Justice approach you, the media, to ask your involvement in securing an intervention and pronouncement by the nation’s Attorney General’s office with respect to the following fact:
On August 11, 2008 the outgoing director of the INPEC, retired Major General Eduardo Morales, authorized a communiqué, that may be found in the case file that the third specialized court of Bogotá, which is charged with moving forward the historic case about the disappearances from the Hall of Justice (for the first time the civil justice system will prosecute military personnel for crimes of lese humanity [forced aggravated disappearance]). In the above-mentioned memo the director of the INPEC declares that said prison lacks the infrastructure to provide health care for the real or supposed illness of the eyes suffered by the retired Coronel Edilberto Sánchez Rubiano, commander of the B2 at the time of the holocaust.
Mr. Sánchez Rubiano and his “job” in the florist’s house to which the civilians evacuated from the Hall were brought (three of them are currently disappeared: Carlos Rodríguez, Cristina Guarín, and Irma Franco) have the first judicial hearing on September 8, 2008 (Human Rights Day) in the third specialized court. Mr. Sánchez has been named by the prosecution witness Virginia Vallejo as one of the persons responsible for the tortures, murder, and dissolution–in buckets of acid and quicklime–of the bodies of those who disappeared in the Hall
We are asking that the diagnosis of ex-coronel Sánchez Rubiano’s illness of the eyes, which according to the INPEC and Legal Medicine would imply staying at home for the immediate future (and help in carrying out daily chores) be made by a physician not from the INPEC and Legal Medicine, so that this not be–as we believe–a “trick” to exchange house for prison for one of those presumed responsible for this tragedy of 23 years ago and crime of lese humanity committed against our family members.
Please contact the national office of the Law Enforcement Office for Public Employees (Procurador General) Dr, Edgardo Maya-Villazon, asking that he receive us for a hearing and respond to our petition. We want a diagnosis from a doctor who is not from one of the aforementioned institutions. A negative response to this petition will be assumed by us to confirm that a lie is being woven, to exchange the benefit of home over jail. An acceptance would dispel our doubts about the real or supposed illness. We have every right to ask this of the Colombian government and the government should see that it happens. We do not want further impunity than what we have lived with for 23 years.
EDGARDO JOSE MAYA VILLAZÒN
Procurador General de la Nación
Cra. 5 No.15 – 80F Bogotá D.C.
anticorrupción@presidencia.gov.co
reygon@procuraduría.gov.co