Ex-soldier captured by assassination of Haitian president expelled from the JEP

The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) expelled Francisco Eladio Uribe Ochoa, a former military member of the National Army captured in Haiti by the assassination of that country's president, Jovenel Moïse, on July 7, 2021.

This decision was taken by the peace court after finding that the former soldier has breached his own obligations as a appearant, especially the guarantees of non-repetition. “Not only did he breach an objective duty to request authorization to leave the country, but, in addition, and more worryingly as the facts indicate, he did so allegedly for purposes of a criminal nature,” the entity's document reads.

The ex-military trial was transferred to the JEP in October 2019. This man was investigated in transitional justice for his alleged involvement in cases of 'false positives'. One of the events investigated, according to the JEP resolution, occurred on March 8, 2008 in the Chorros Blancos village of the municipality of Yarumal, Antioquia. On November 1, 2000, Uribe Ochoa was incorporated as a professional soldier in the National Army, an activity he carried out until 2018.

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In order to make this decision, the JEP requested information from the National Police, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Justice and Public Security of Haiti, as well as the Prosecutor's Office and Police Directorate of the Central American country. All these institutions reported that Uribe Ochoa and the other 17 detained nationals are undergoing a firm judicial process.

The JEP judges ruled that the decision “leaves without prerogatives and transitional benefits the appearant Francisco Eladio Uribe Ochoa, who from this moment on loses that quality because he has failed to fulfill the obligations and duties that his submission to the JEP and the conditionality regime to which he was subject demanded”.

Two days after the assassination, a woman who claimed to be the wife of the former military man, said on W Radio, that her husband, with whom they have been married for 18 years, “was deceived. He traveled because he had been told it was a juicy job opportunity.”

At the moment, it is known that detainees in Haiti have denounced, through letters, death threats against their families in Colombia. In addition, they say that they are in serious health conditions and are not treated correctly. In this letter, the captured ex-soldiers also denounce that in eight months they have been detained they have not had a technical defense because no Haitian lawyer wants to take over their cases.

Now the trial against Uribe Ochoa will follow the path of the ordinary justice, which had already called him to trial twice, before being accepted into the JEP. The first accusation by the investigating body came in May 2019. On that occasion he was informed of the extrajudicial execution of Yeferson Rivas and Diego Juan López.

Investigations have indicated that the two victims died in the Rio Grande village of the municipality of Don Matías, in Antioquia, allegedly at the hands of the Military Gaula of that department. In another file, Uribe is accused of participating in the dubious Ferrari operation in the municipality of Yarumal (Antioquia), in which an unidentified person was killed with a 38-caliber revolver next to him.

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