We welcome the decision of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace to deny transitional release to José Miguel Narváez.
On February 28th, the Legal Situations Definition Chamber, SDSJ, of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, JEP, resolved the request of the former deputy director of the extinct DAS and former military advisor José Miguel Narváez, to submit to this jurisdiction in exchange for the benefit of temporary, conditional and early release.
In its decision, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace determined that the proposal of Clear, Concrete and Programmed Commitments, CCCP of Narváez, a requirement to submit to this jurisdiction “does not comply with the requirements of clarity, concreteness and programming in the contributions of full truth, nor of material and immaterial reparation” and resolved to reject the submission to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace of Mr. José Miguel Narváez Martínez, and ordered him to submit within ten days, the ‘format for the contribution of information to the data matrix on the truth of the perpetrators and conducts related to the Colombian armed conflict’ or form F-1 annexed to the SENIT 1 of 2019 and attach a pactum veritatis, adjusted to this decision”.
The Special Jurisdiction for Peace also decided to return the proceedings against him to the ordinary jurisdiction, in particular the kidnapping of political leader Piedad Córdoba and the assassination of Senator Manuel Cepeda Vargas, so that investigations can continue.
It should be recalled that Narváez appeared before the Special Jurisdiction for Peace as a third party, that is, a State agent who was not a member of the security forces, to obtain benefits for events such as the murder of journalist and peace promoter Jaime Garzón Forero, for which he was convicted in the ordinary justice system.
He was also presented to this jurisdiction for other cases in which he is linked to, such as the assassination of Senator Manuel Cepeda Vargas, the kidnapping of former Senator Piedad Córdoba Ruiz, and illegal intelligence activities from the now defunct DAS against the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective -Cajar and other human rights organizations, journalists and political leaders, as well as for his alleged links to the paramilitary structure, self-styled Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia -AUC (United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia), among others.
In relation to these facts, and at the request of the JEP, Mr. Narváez presented in November 2019 a proposal of Clear, Concrete and Programmed Commitments, CCCP, in which he claimed to have been a victim of retaliation by the FARC and the paramilitaries, denied his responsibility by action or omission in all the facts and stated that his contribution to the truth would be:
“… contribute to the understanding of the political war that is developing in the country and that projects its effects, in addition to physical violence, in other forms of confrontation in judicial, political and propagandistic scenarios that lead to polarization, enmities and injustices that prevent the realization of a climate of peace in Colombia.”
After this document was sent to the victims and the Attorney General’s Office in February 2020, they submitted their observations on it, sent questionnaires on the relevant aspects of each case on which Mr. Narváez should provide the truth, and pointed out that his expressions not only ignore the judicial truth, but are also revictimizing.
Subsequently, at the request of the Chamber, the Grupo de Análisis y Contexto de la JEP, GRAI, analyzed Narváez’s proposal and concluded that there was no real commitment to contribute to the truth, a full recognition of all the victims of the events, nor a concrete proposal for comprehensive reparation to the victims in terms of works and works with reparatory content, TOAR, as required by the Special Jurisdiction for Peace.
For all of the above, the Chamber asked him to reformulate the petition, to which he responded in July 2020 with a new document entitled Pactum Veritatis, in similar terms to the previous one, adding hypotheses about an alleged plot between the Prosecutor’s Office and the representation of victims to accuse him in the case of Jaime Garzón, in order to try to dismiss the evidence of the conviction against him.
In relation to the other facts, the SDSJ stated: “Regarding the other cases in which Mr. Narváez Martínez is linked, such as: the assassination of former senator Manuel Cepeda Vargas; the kidnapping of former senator Piedad Esneda Córdoba and the torture of journalist Claudia Julieta Duque Orrego, he made no contribution to the full truth. And in the readjustment he presented to his proposal, he completely ignored the observations made by the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the victims, which is not congruent with the dialogic and constructive nature of this justice…”
Therefore, the SDSJ of the SJP concluded that the proposal presented so far by Mr. José Miguel Narváez Martínez is not suitable to be considered a pactum veritatis, and neither is it admissible in this Jurisdiction to accept his submission as a third party, nor as a State Agent not a member of the Public Force, ENIFPU, nor is it possible to grant transitory, conditional and early release.
As representatives of victims in the cases of Jaime Garzón, Manuel Cepeda Vargas and Piedad Córdoba Ruiz, we welcome this decision by the JEP’s Legal Situations Definition Chamber, and we insist that Narváez must contribute to the clarification of the patterns that gave rise to the political persecution against sectors of the opposition, the paramilitary project and the doctrines that sustained these phenomena of state criminality.
There can be no benefits for those who seek to turn transitional justice into a scenario for denying the procedural, historical and victims’ truth, and for re-victimization. Only with real and effective commitments to truth, justice and comprehensive reparation, this jurisdiction will be able to advance towards the realization of the rights of the victims and towards the truthful reconstruction of the facts so that they will never be repeated.
