Colombian retired colonel gets 30 years for disappearances in 1985 Palace of Justice takeover

Colombian officer jailed in ‘85 court takeover

BOGOTA, Colombia — A Colombian judge sentenced a retired army colonel to 30 years in prison Wednesday for the disappearance of 11 people in 1985 when soldiers stormed the Palace of Justice to retake it from leftist guerrillas.

Retired Col. Luis Alfonso Plazas was the commander of the Bogota Cavalry School, which led the military assault on the rebels. He is the first officer to be convicted in the siege, one of the darkest chapters in Colombia’s modern history.

Rebels from the M-19 guerrilla group seized the Palace on Nov. 6, 1985, taking hostages and demanding to hold a trial of then-President Belisario Betancur. Between the initial seizure and the end of the siege the following day, more than 100 people were killed, including the guerrillas and 11 of the 24 Supreme Court justices.

Eleven other people, many of them cafeteria workers, went missing, allegedly tortured and killed because they witnessed heavy-handed tactics by the army as it stormed the building.

Their disappearance led to investigations of the military operation and ultimately to Plazas’ sentence, which was reported to journalists Wednesday by Rafael Barrios, a lawyer for victims’ families.

Relatives of the victims embraced and wept at the news.

The ruling represents hope for justice “in the face of the impunity we have seen these 25 years,” said Sandra Beltran, sister of missing Palace of Justice cafeteria worker Bernardo Beltran.

A lawyer for Plazas, now 65 years old, called the sentence “unjust” and vowed an appeal. Jaime Granados said there was no evidence against the retired colonel except the accounts of two witnesses he called unreliable.

President Alvaro Uribe, who enjoys wide popularity among many Colombians for his hard-line stance on fighting Colombia’s guerrillas, criticized the decision.

The seizure of the Palace of Justice in 1985 was the product of “a criminal alliance between drug traffickers and guerrillas who assassinated the Supreme Court (justices),” Uribe told reporters. “None of the criminals (behind the assault) are in jail, but now I see they have convicted a member of the Colombian armed forces who was simply trying to do his duty. It’s painful, sad.”

Plazas’ defense argued that he was acting on orders from his superiors to retake the building, and that he had nothing to do with the disappearance of the 11. But prosecutors accused him of giving the command to “get rid of them.”

The M-19 movement disarmed in 1990. An amnesty was declared for its members, and some have entered politics and become governors, senators and presidential candidates.