Far from the indulgences with dangerous prisoners and other millionaires for whom the National Penitentiary Institute is currently in the eye of the hurricane; two years ago, on March 21, when the confinement began in the country due to the arrival of covid-19, there was hell in the La Modelo prison in Bogotá that left stories frightening and the deaths of 24 prisoners.
The incident became known that night through the videos of several inmates who showed small fragments of what was happening through social networks, but it was not until several days later that the magnitude of a mutiny was known for which three dragonists have been accused of torture and abuse.
According to a former prisoner who gave his testimony to the newspaper El Espectador, the mutiny began at 9:00 on the night of March 21, 2020. He was in yard 3 with those convicted of drug trafficking who did not participate in the escape attempt, but he could see that the 4 men came out on the court and managed to break down a wall, but were returned by the guard's rifle fire, he said.
After the escape of several prisoners, the shooting began and some of the prisoners returned to their cells to try to steal each other's belongings. They had machetes, knives and with the cement weights they knocked down walls.
The express told that newspaper that due to the profile of those who were in the courtyard, they did not participate. But the others, seeing the dead, took it against the prisoners who kept themselves out and tried to kill and rob them. After four hours the guards arrived, especially by two condemned dragonists, and he saw those who had entered the courtyard to escape beat “almost to deprive them”.
According to Noticias Caracol revealed a year after the events, that night there were a total of 60 guards to guard more than 5,000 prisoners in the prison. Hundreds of them joined the mutiny and it took 20 minutes for the guards to lose control of the prison.
It was when they broke one of the outer walls that the dragoners fired firearms. One hour after the start of the mutiny, it was evident that the guards and other support members entered the prison with rifles, pistols, throwers and armed with sticks, bats and knives that are not allowed by law, to begin the retaking.
Also seen at the front door was a parade of prisoners reduced to beatings, some of them already dead, who were taken naked to another location to take control. That meant an alteration of judicial scenes that are now part of the investigation.
Esteban Mateus, a dragonman who was in gate 9, had to face some 30 mutineers who tried to burn him by setting fire from the entrance door of the guard post. After half an hour resisting what had become an oven, he broke a window and threw himself into the void, where he was greeted by other comrades and with severe burns to his face and body.
The Office of the Prosecutor General of the Nation submitted a statement of indictment against three INPEC dragoners. According to the entity, the members were involved in acts of torture during and after the riot, due to three events that were established by the investigators.
According to the evidentiary material, dragonist Julián Alberto Piñeros Gómez would be involved in two of the cases of torture. Apparently, “the guard beat and handcuffed naked a prisoner of liberty”, who had been told to participate in the mutiny. “He would have squatted him for several hours and injured him with a sharp weapon,” the entity explained in a statement.
In the other event, in which Piñeros was also involved, the member of Inpec “allegedly fists an inmate who was wounded by a gun shell and cut off the index finger of his left hand,” the Prosecutor's Office commented.
In the last event, dragonists Víctor Alfonso Cervera Piratova and Jefferson Fabian Hueso Escárraga would have participated. The judiciary stated that, “allegedly, two prisoners of liberty who were in the hospital La Misericordia were attacked with the tonfa or baton of command” because of the injuries they received with firearms during the prison demonstration. “These two men were reportedly beaten multiple times while they were handcuffed on a stretcher,” the Prosecutor's Office added. When they returned to the prison establishment they were violently punished.”
Piñeros Gómez was sheltered with security measures in a prison center; but Cervera Piratoba and Hueso Escárraga benefited from home detention while the investigation continued. All are on trial and, although they acknowledge that excesses could be brought, they deny that the crime of torture had been established.
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