He was summoned for questioning seven years after his death
By resolution of March 14, 2022, the Prosecutor’s Office closed the proceedings against police agent Luis Ernesto Suárez Ceballos for the disappearance of 13 young people during 1982 in the case known as Colectivo 82, due to the death of the person involved.
The judicial investigation was able to establish that among the vehicles in the agent’s possession, there is evidence of a pickup truck with license plates AJ-1444 that corresponds to the same automobile that was observed in the vicinity of the residence of the Sanjuan Arévalo youths on the date of their disappearance. According to the conclusion of the Investigating Commission, this agent, as well as others of the F2, should be criminally and disciplinarily prosecuted for transgressions to the Law and regulations, whether by action or omission in the exercise of their functions.
Thus, the Ninth Court of Criminal Instruction and the 51st Court of Military Criminal Instruction, linked him to the investigation and he gave evidence in September 1983 before the Ninth Court of Criminal Instruction, Ambulante, of the Judicial District of Bogotá. In the investigation, when these facts were brought to his attention, the agent claimed not to know the victims nor to have participated in operations related to their detention.
On that occasion, the court ordered that the defendant continue to enjoy his freedom with the obligation to report to that office once a week, despite the seriousness of the facts and the risk that this implied for the victims.
For its part, the Attorney General’s Office of the Nation, through a ruling of January 1987, decided to open a formal disciplinary investigation against him, for illegal retention, search without the order of a competent authority, violent and improper treatment of the victims Edgar Helmut García Villamizar, Edilbrando Joya Gómez, Bernardo Eli Acosta Rojas and Manuel Acosta Rojas, for the events that occurred in September 1982 in the municipality of Gachalá and the village of Las Murcas.
In addition to the opening of the investigation, the Attorney General’s Office ordered the prosecution to file charges for:
“Having participated in Gachalá, Cundinamarca, on September 15, 1982, in the detention of Bernardo Heli Acosta Rojas and Manuel Darío Acosta Rojas, apprehensions presumably illegal because at that time they were not in any of the situations authorized by the constitution and Colombian law to deprive them of their liberty. You actively participated in the mistreatment of Bernardo Heli Acosta Rojas and Edgar Helmut García Villamizar, which occurred in the municipality of Gachalá, Vereda de Murcas, on September 15, 1982. …. Furthermore… Notwithstanding their duty to watch over the detainees, Mr. Edilbrando Joya Gómez, Edgar Helmut García Villamizar and Manuel Darío Acosta Rojas, they disappeared as of September 15, 1982, without any news of the aforementioned young men…”.
Despite all the evidentiary material and the conclusion of the investigative commission, the Special Military Prosecutor in charge of Colonel Guillermo Camelo Caldas, issued an opinion in November 1986, considering the definitive closure of the investigation in favor of the agents, Majors Nacin Yanina Diaz, Ernesto Condia Garzón and Jorge Alipio Vanegas Torres, Captains Jairo Otálora Duran, Luis Ángel Perdomo Perdomo and Miguel Rodrigo Torrado Badillo, Second Sergeants Josue Rafael Cobos Silva, José Alirio Velásquez Garzón, Jaime Heli Colmenares Botero and Jorge Enrique Ortiz Parrado and Agents Henry Espitia Diaz, José Dolores Quesada, Adrián Villamizar Jaimes, Luis Ernesto Suarez Ceballos, Pedro Jesús Ramírez, Benecito Lara, Luis Eduardo Aguirre Baranga and Jorge Eliecer Barbosa Sánchez, accused of simple kidnapping. This decision was confirmed the same year by the Superior Military Court.
In 2008, 20 years after the closure decision, the 53rd Human Rights Prosecutor’s Office, acting under a special designation granted by the Coordination of the Human Rights Unit, filed an appeal for review before the Supreme Court of Justice, with the support of the victims’ representatives.
Therefore, in June 2011, the Supreme Court of Justice decided to declare the definitive closure without value and, on the contrary, ordered the referral of the proceedings to the Attorney General’s Office to continue with the investigation. In this decision the Supreme Court emphasized that “the absence of impartiality and seriousness in the investigation culminated with the dismissal in question”, i.e. suspended.
From that moment on, the victims’ representatives requested that the arrest and indictment of Messrs Coronel Nacin Yanine, Mayores Ernesto Condia Garzón y José Alipio Vanegas Torres, Capitanes Luis Ángel Perdomo Perdomo, Jairo Otálora Durán Y Miguel Rodríguez Torrado Badillo, los sargentos Segundos José Alirio Velásquez Garzón, Jorge Enrique Ortiz Parrado, Jaime Heli Colmenares Botero y Josue Rafael Cobos Silva y los Agentes José David Quezada, Jorge Eliecer Barbosa Sánchez, Benedicto Lara, Adrián Villamizar Jaimes, Henry Espitia Diaz y del agente fallecido Luis Ernesto Suarez Ceballos.
In June 2013 and December 2015, the civil party insisted on carrying out the inquiries, without obtaining favorable results, time continued to elapse and it was only until 2017 that agent Luis Ernesto Suarez Ceballos was called to render Indagatoria by Prosecutor 71, who did not verify that he had died four years earlier.
Later on, Suarez Ceballos was again summoned to a hearing by official letter dated November 2, 2021, seven years after his death, despite the fact that the database of the National Registry of Civil Status showed Mr. Suarez Ceballos’ identity document as cancelled due to death.
This serious fact confirms the pattern of impunity that has been at work in the case of Colectivo 82 where, despite the demands of the victims and the orders issued by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, there has been no due diligence or access to justice for the victims. On the contrary, there is evidence of negligence on the part of the justice system and an intention to delay the process, so much so as to not call for inquiries or to do so after a long time, without even verifying the survival of one of those implicated.
To date, we are still awaiting the summons of Commander Nacin Yanine, the legal situation of the other commander with the last name of Condia is defined and the proceedings that have been paralyzed for 40 years due to the impunity that has undermined this process continue to be linked and practiced.
That is why, on the 40th anniversary of the Colectivo 82 case, the victims continue to demand that the Attorney General’s Office recognize it as a crime against humanity, because it meets all the criteria and so that justice will ever reach all those responsible.
40 years of impunity: Until we find them!
