Case of former governor of La Guajira, Kiko Gómez, convicted of homicide, will be re-evaluated by the JEP

In recent hours it was reported that the case of Kiko Gómez will be evaluated, again by the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP). It was the Appeals Section of that body that decided to revoke the ruling that rejected the submission of the former Governor of La Guajira, Francisco 'Kiko' Gómez to that appeal. That body then ordered the Trial Chamber to assess whether or not it accepts its admission to the agency for alleged links with paramilitary groups. The links would have occurred between 1997 and 2006, when he was mayor of Barrancas.

“This Section shall revoke the petitioner's refusal to submit in respect of the aforementioned period and shall order that the Chamber continue the procedure prior to resolving such benefit, now for the entire time in which it had links with the AUC. It must be reiterated that the applicant will have to provide full truth about everything he knows about the conflict,” the decision states.

This occurs after the initial judgment of the Trial Chamber, the Definition Chamber, was corrected, after it was determined there that the crimes allegedly committed by the former official had occurred when he was not a public servant and, on the contrary, had the status of active member of the Self-Defence Forces. According to the entity, Kiko Gómez “has provided evidence that would prove that he is a third party funder of paramilitary groups and not an active member.”

In an interview with La W, Diana López Zuleta, a journalist and daughter of former councilman Luis Gregorio López, whose father would have been the victim of homicide by Gómez, said she does not share the decision. According to Diana, the former mayor is not a third party with ties to paramilitary groups, in fact, he was a paramilitary directly.

“Although 'Kiko' Gómez used the paramilitary apparatus to send homicides, to send massacres to commit massacres, it was not a third party, here what they change is the approach to be accommodated (...) In the Peace Agreement it was established that only third civilians or third agents of the state enter the JEP, he was mayor of Barrancas and could apply, but he was not only a collaborator or funder, he was an active part, he commanded homicides, that is not a collaborator,” said Diana in her talk with her broadcaster.

It should be borne in mind that Gomez is sentenced to 55 years for the crimes perpetrated against the mayor of the municipality of Barrancas, Yandra Brito, her husband, Henry Ustáriz and her driver, Wilfredo Fonseca. He also has a 40-year prison sentence for the murders of Barrancas councilman Luis López Peralta, Luis Rodríguez Frías and Rosa Mercedes Cabrera, the first perpetrated on February 22, 1997 and the others on July 7, 2000.

“It is proven that people who were members of both the criminal gang of Marquitos Figueroa and the AUC participated in the events, that the motive was the alleged presence of a guerrilla fighter on the premises where the victims were and that the order was issued by Mr. Gómez Cerchar,” the determination reads.

It was recently reported that Juan Francisco 'Kiko' Gómez Cerchar, former governor of La Guajira, had lost the 180-day redemption of his sentence for misconduct. This year it was shown that the man bought and brought alcoholic beverages into his detention center, including cell phones entered. This was confirmed by Colonel Wilmer José Valencia, director of the La Picota prison in Bogotá.

“If I want to beg INPEC and the National Government to do their part of the task so that the security effort will bear fruit, cannot it be that Mr. Kiko Gómez, a criminal that I have denounced for many years, celebrates with whiskey, drums and saucers from Christmas prison; isn't he supposed to be a prisoner responding for crimes?” , commented the mayor of the Colombian capital, Claudia López.

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