The Colombian Prosecutor’s Office captures Colonel Benjamin Nunez for the triple homicide of Chocho

Retired Colonel Benjamin Nunez flew to Mexico when his name began to sound like one of the soldiers involved in the death of three young people in Chocho, Sucre, on July 25. Jesus David Diaz, 18, Carlos Alberto Ibanez, 26, and Jose Carlos Arevalo, 20, were murdered after being detained at a police checkpoint. Several photos, taken by the residents of the town, on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, served as evidence so that the families of the victims could demonstrate that the version of the authorities was not true and that they had not been “killed in combat.”

Nunez, whom the evidence pointed to as the main person responsible for the crime, was captured this Saturday by the Prosecutor’s Office, which has charged him with the crimes of aggravated homicide, concealment, alteration or destruction of evidence and unjust deprivation of liberty. The colonel has denied the charges and has announced that he will seek a negotiation with the authorities, but the evidence that incriminates him seems to leave him with no way out.

“In abuse of their functions, without any justification, they deprive of their liberty the young people who got on said trailer. [vehiculo] alive”, narrated the prosecutor, recalling that the three boys were forced to get into an institution car and were later shot dead by Nunez.

“Despite having spent at least seven cartridges, he replaced them to torpedo the investigation, thereby pretending to evade his responsibility for the death of the three young people,” he was accused at the hearing this Saturday. The colonel turned himself in to the authorities on Friday at the Colombian Consulate in Mexico. In that country he was hiding since the evidence pointed to him as the author of the crime of the three young people.

In addition to Nunez, eight more policemen have been linked to the investigation and remain detained in La Picota prison in Bogota. At least 11 soldiers participated, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, in the illegal detention of the young people under the excuse that they could be responsible for the death of a police officer on the morning of that same day in a nearby town.

“When they were stopped at a checkpoint and, as they are known in the town, people began to take photos. At 8:30 pm, when the news of his death spread, an inhabitant published it on social networks, ”Yessica Diaz, sister of Jesus, one of the dead youths, told EL PAIS. The photos were some of the evidence that they remained alive when they were in police custody.

“First he shot the one in the red sweater, then the colonel shot the other two who are on the right side of the plate. He ordered them to lie down and there he shot both of them. They were one on top of the other when he shot them at point-blank range, he killed all three of them at point-blank range, ”explained one of the patrolmen who was there when the events occurred, according to a testimony published Time.

The families of the victims denounce that they were tortured before being murdered and demand that Colonel Nunez also be charged with this crime, as have the other captured police officers. According to Legal Medicine, at least one of the young men had his skin ripped off with a knife. According to witnesses, they were all tied up and beaten.

The hearing advanced this Saturday afternoon, despite the claims of the colonel, who asked that it be suspended and postponed. “Let me rest please, believe me that if I appear here it is because I want to tell the truth, I want to tell the truth, I am not going to leave, I am here under the supervision of the same Prosecutor’s Office, there is no need to rush in this process ”.

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