Occupation of the Palace of Justice
The occupation of the Palace of Justice (Spanish: Toma del Palacio de Justicia ) is the occupation of the Constitutional Court in Bogotá ( Colombia ) by the guerrilla group M-19 on November 6, 1985.
course
On November 6, 1985, 35 guerrillas stormed the Palace of Justice. They came in a stolen bus. During the storm, they killed the administrator of the building and several security officers. They took 300 people hostage, including 24 constitutional judges. Three hours after the attack, the security forces freed around 200 hostages on the lower three floors.
A radio station received a message from the M-19 guerrilla group in which they admitted to the storming. Over the phone in the Palace of Justice, the assassins called on the Colombian President Belisario Betancur to face a court case in the building, which he refused.
The attackers burned a lot of files on the fourth floor, including all extradition files. Therefore there are voices in Colombia who do not see the occupation as politically motivated, but as an action on behalf of Pablo Escobar to prevent extradition to the United States and to remove constitutional judges.
The building was eventually stormed by the army , killing dozens of people. In addition, eleven people disappeared from the court canteen.
Victim
Killed magistrates
- Magistrate Alfonso Reyes Echandía
- Magistrate Fabio Calderón Botero
- Magistrate Pedro Elías Serrano Abadía
- Magistrate Darío Velásquez Gaviria
- Magistrate José Eduardo Gnecco Correa
- Magistrate Ricardo Medina Moyano
- Magistrate Alfonso Patiño Roselli
- Magistrate Carlos Medellín Forero
- Magistrate Fanny González Franco
- Magistrate Dante Luis Fiorillo Porras
- Magistrate Manuel Gaona Cruz
- Magistrate Horacio Montoya Gil
Work-up
On June 8, 2010, a Bogotá court sentenced retired Army Colonel Alfonso Plazas Vega to 30 years in prison. According to the court, he was responsible for the disappearance of the eleven people from the canteen. The executing judge was then subjected to massive persecution and death threats. She temporarily fled to Germany . In addition, the then President Álvaro Uribe Vélez announced on television that in future he would ensure that members of the army were safe from access by the judiciary.
swell
- Constanza Vieira: Colombia: 30 years imprisonment for ex-officer - head of state criticizes human rights judgment. ( Memento of November 29, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) June 16, 2010.
Individual evidence
- ^ Andrés Grillo: La Toma del Palacio.
- ↑ Robin Kirk: More Terrible Than Death: Drugs, Violence, and America's War in Colombia . PublicAffairs, New York City 2003, ISBN 978-1-58648-207-7 , p. 136
- ↑ a b Knut Heckel: Risk profession judge. In: the daily newspaper . July 15, 2011, accessed July 15, 2011 .