Hugo Aguilar accepted in the JEP that he had received support from the AUC to be governor of Santander.
Photo: JEP
The former governor of Santander, Hugo Heliodoro Aguilar Naranjo, told the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) that he did receive support from the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) to be elected governor of Santander (2004-2007), however, he denied having received money from that armed group. The statement was made during the single truth hearing to which he was summoned and in which he has the last opportunity to enter that jurisdiction if he provides the truth about the facts that he knows about the armed conflict.
You may be interested: JEP will analyze whether to accept former parapolitician and governor of Santander, Hugo Aguilar
During the hearing, Aguilar Naranjo recounted and delivered before magistrates Juan Ramón Martínez and Heydi Patricia Baldosea of the Juridical Situations Definition Chamber of the JEP, a cartographic map of a farm called Gorgona, in Santander, whose owner was Luis Ramírez alias Puntilla , in which there would be bodies of people who disappeared during the conflict. “On that farm there was a lake and the bodies of the people they murdered were thrown to the crocodiles and others buried them,” he said.
The former governor also said that he did not receive support from the paramilitaries to be a deputy, but he did to be governor of that department. “The support that the Self-Defense Forces give me already comes into play in the campaign for governor, especially in terms of permission to proselytize. “They told people that they should vote for Colonel Aguilar,” he said. However, he said that he did not receive money from them nor did he manage their income.
Read: Judge sends Hugo Aguilar’s process for money laundering to the JEP
Aguilar Naranjo also assured that all hospitals and clinics in Santander were forced to treat sick or injured paramilitaries and that on some occasions doctors were taken to treat them in rural areas. Likewise, he confessed that although he did not receive money from these groups, he did nothing to combat them. “One realized the displacements, the theft of gasoline from the Ecopetrol pipeline and nothing was done,” Aguilar said.
What did Aguilar say about Pablo Escobar?
In addition to his political career, Aguilar belonged to the Police, where he became a colonel. But his most remembered position was that of operational commander of the Search Block against the Medellín Cartel that led to the death of Pablo Escobar Gaviria in 1993. What’s more, in several history books, the convicted former governor has been portrayed as the agent who He shot the boss of bosses on the roof of a house in Medellín.
Due to his proximity to the persecution against the mafia, Aguilar told the JEP that it was General (r) Miguel Maza Márquez who asked him to meet with the paramilitary leaders, Carlos Castaño and alias Don Berna, to receive information that would lead to the location of Escobar Gaviria. According to his testimony, that meeting took place at the Carlos Holguín School, but his superior did not agree with that meeting because it involved two criminals.
In that search to find Escobar, Aguilar revealed that the Search Block would have had alliances with men from the Castaño brothers, the Galeano (another mafia clan from the 80s) and those from the Cali Cartel. Together, they would have carried out massacres and murders, under the mission of finishing Escobar. Aguilar, as an example, said that one of those violent events was the massacre at the Oporto nightclub, which occurred on June 23, 1990.
It was an attack by members of the Search Block, who arrived hooded at the bar, which was between Medellín and Envigado, and shot at the men who were there, supposedly under an operation against Escobar. In total, 19 people died and justice remains unclear whether there were really members of the Medellín Cartel in that nightclub.
“The State acted indifferent,” Aguilar added during the hearing at the JEP. And he added that, as it was already evident that the public force was behind these deaths and attacks, the solution he had at that time was to invent a name for the criminals who were helping the Search Block to find Escobar.
“In an intelligence meeting we determined what to do so that they would not blame us, because they were going to prosecute us, especially those of us who were part of the intelligence group and the special operations group. At that meeting, a police officer who had a Pepe jean passed by. It occurred to me to tell all the official commanders: ‘Look, there’s the acronym, those who are doing that (the massacres and murders) are ‘Los Pepes’, persecuted by Pablo Escobar, that’s adding an S to it,” said the retired colonel. .
This is Aguilar’s last chance to enter the JEP. On December 26, 2019, he submitted a request to submit to that special justice to appear as an agent of the State not a member of the Public Force. However, such submission was rejected as his contributions to the truth were considered insufficient. But this man insisted at the JEP on his ability to say what he knows regarding the armed conflict and appealed the decision, an appeal that was successful. This meant that he was given one last chance if he told the truth about what he knew about the armed conflict.
At that time, the JEP also sent to the Search Unit for Persons Reportedly Missing, a copy of the commitment sent by the former official and its annexes, since it contains the expert report on the areas where clandestine graves used by the United Self-Defense Forces could be found. of Colombia (AUC).
To learn more about justice, security and human rights, visit the Judicial section of El Espectador.