Facundo Molares continues to be detained in the Ezeiza prison, subjected to an infinite bureaucracy that delays his freedom. The governments of Colombia and Argentina cause what Gustavo Franquet – one of his lawyers – called “an illegality”. Eduardo Matyas Camargo, his Colombian colleague in the defense of the former guerrilla who was going to be extradited, says: “the interpretation in criminal law is always favorable to the defendant. We as lawyers advocate that freedom be granted immediately since the Criminal Justice of Peace resolved his case and there are no more resources. Sending a simple email with the necessary documentation would clear the path of the communist militant towards his release, but his release from prison is delayed. From the conversation with the two defenders, it is clear that the government of Iván Duque could deliberately or out of laziness delay the administrative resolution of the case.
“Half of the responsibility for Facundo being detained lies with the Argentine Foreign Ministry, particularly for denying him legal assistance,” says Franquet in dialogue with Page 12. Molares spends his hours in the country’s maximum security prison since he was arrested in November of last year. First in Rawson, Chubut and then in Ezeiza. When this journalist interviewed him on June 14, he denounced that “there was a Plan Condor 2.0, no longer with dictatorships but with democracies.” His days are spent between reading and the frustration of not having been able to pursue university studies in prison, also for bureaucratic reasons.
Franquet, who is a member of the Lawyers Guild of our country, explains that the extradition process and his capture were carried out by “an authority that did not have the competence to do so in Colombia. We told everyone. However, Argentina emphasized and defended the competence of these incompetent people until we got the lawyers in Colombia, until the JEP (Special Justice for Peace) ruled and put things in their place”.
The lawyer refers to the fact that “the municipal prosecutor of the town of Florencia, in Caquetá, and a judge who signed everything and is from another department called Huila, should not act in the process. Two ordinary judicial officials who had no jurisdiction over the matter. They are the ones who denied the cause to the JEP. They did not fulfill their obligation. When they took the case to trial, all this was discovered.”
Matyas Camargo pointed out that the Special Justice for Peace in Colombia “has already ordered the suspension of Facundo’s extradition and release. What is missing to continue the procedure is for the Foreign Ministries of Argentina and Colombia to act so that he obtains his freedom. The JEP decided and there is no recourse left. It is a resolution of immediate compliance”.
The Colombian lawyer also described the context in which the extradition granted by the Esquel federal judge, Guido Otranto, could have taken place: “there are no guarantees for him to go to my country, his life could be at risk if the public order situation does not improve. . There are more than 330 ex-combatants killed after the signing of the peace agreement, and close to a thousand social leaders eliminated during the Duque government that ends on August 7.”
To the question about whether the Colombian ordinary justice had any more instance of intervention in the case, Franquet replied:
“Absolutely no appeal at all. Those who had the case in the criminal court, the prosecutor of the Oral Trial and the Court, declared themselves incompetent. They said that a month ago.”
The lawyer denounces that “the only thing missing is for Argentina and Colombia to decide and comply with the JEP resolution that says that the extradition request has been suspended. We as lawyers have already been notified. It is not that we are talking on the air, we are formally notified of that resolution. But what is the problem that arises? the problem is Argentina, that both Otranto and the Foreign Ministry ask Colombia for clarifications and we understand that there is no clarification to ask for”.
His Colombian colleague also questions the Bogotá government “because President Duque has not been very favorable to the peace process and so we do not know what his attitude will be, since up to now we do not even know if he sent the documentation to Argentina. Facundo was left to the discretion of the government of my country.” In the midst of this whole situation, another of the lawyers who collaborated in Molares’ defense, Colombian jurist Diego Martínez Castillo, who was part of the advisory commission for the Peace Treaties, was deported from Buenos Aires to Colombia last Monday when he arrived to Ezeiza airport.
Matyas Camargo, who traveled with him on the same plane, explained: “It seems that the Duque government has some lists and we don’t know why. Diego was held here at Immigration because they first told him that he had a namesake and they had to clarify if that was the case. Later they commented that there was a list prepared, not by the Argentine government, but by the Colombian government and that he could not enter certain territories. He had already had a similar problem when he traveled to Washington and they wouldn’t let him in.” Franquet added: “They were looking for an excuse to throw him out, they contacted us, we sent him the invitation from the Lawyers’ Union again, but at seven in the morning they put him on a plane and sent him back to Colombia.”
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