47
disappearance.256 Regarding Major Guzmán, the decision noted that “no administrative act or reason
was found during the on-site judicial inspection visits conducted (…) that terminated the Águila Task
Force” and therefore “his liability would go up to the incidents occurring on June 27, 1996.” It was
noted that “based on the examination of the testimony received (…) serious indications that involve his
responsibility cannot be deduced, inasmuch as circumstances of time, mode and place in which said
member of the National Army participated in the commission of even one of the abductions cannot be
inferred from them [the indications] (…) much less is there (…) any evidence that seriously, concretely
and directly implicates him either by action or omission in the commission of the disappearances.” With
regard to Ramón Isaza, it was determined that “there is evidence inferring his criminal liability” and that
he would be “one of the master minds” of the abductions of the alleged victims and of the homicide of
Javier Giraldo.257
150. On December 18, 2003, the attorney for the victims in the proceedings requested the
UNDH to gather several different pieces of evidence.258
151. On April 19, 2004, the UNDH issued a decision ordering that several pieces of evidence
be gathered, some of which had been requested by the legal representative of the victims’ families.259
The motion filed by Major Carlos Guzmán’s defense attorney to close the investigation was also denied.
In said decision to deny the motion, the need to gather the remaining evidence and the complexity of
the investigation were noted.260
152. On November 18, 2004, the judicial investigators mentioned reports from the village to
the effect that the municipal ombudsman of Cocorná at that time had sought refuge in Australia “out of
fear of being murdered as had happened to (…) the ombudsman of El Carmen de Viboral”. The reports
256
Charges were brought for the following crimes against the following victims: i) Aggravated simple abduction of
Óscar Zuluaga, Miguel Cardona and Juan Cardona; ii) Simple abduction of Aníbal Castaño, alias Fredy, María Irene Gallego, Juan
Carlos Gallego, Jaime Mejía, Hernando de Jesús Castaño and Octavio Gallego; and aggravated homicide of Javier de Jesús
Giraldo.
257
Annex 13. Judicial decision of the National Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Unit of the Office of
the Attorney General of the Nation, signed by Special Prosecutor Lilia Hernández Ramírez, dated April 30, 2003. Case file No.
233 UNDH. Book No. 9. Folios 251-302. Compact disk attached to petitioners’ communication of June 24, 2010.
258
Annex 62. Submission Rdo. 233 from Liliana Uribe, court appointed representative of the victims’ families as a civil
party, National Civil Rights Unit of the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation, dated December 18, 2003. Annex to
petitioners’ submission received in the IACHR on February 1, 2007. The evidence requested by them was: i) approving the
report of the Office of the Attorney General of August 10, 1996, which posits the existence of a paramilitary group led by
Ramón Isaza and which refers to the collaboration that there has been between units of the army and persons linked to the
national police; ii) summoning to testify Arley de Jesús Arango, soldier who admitted being an escort of Ramón Isaza; iii)
summoning to testify Ilga Ruiz Angarita, sectional prosecutor in charge of the municipality of El Santuario, who processed Irene
Gallego on June 28, 1996 and subsequently handed her over to the FTA; and iv) summoning to testify family members of the
victims.
259
Annex 24. Decision of the National Human Rights Unit of the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation, signed
by Special Prosecutor Lilia Hernández, dated April 19, 2004. Case File No. 233 UNDH. Book No. 10. Pages 41-45. Compact disk
attached to petitioners’ communication of June 24, 2010.
260
Annex 24. Decision of the National Human Rights Unit of the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation, signed
by Special Prosecutor Lilia Hernández, dated April 19, 2004. Case File No. 233 UNDH. Book No. 10. Pages 41-45. Compact disk
attached to petitioners’ communication of June 24, 2010.