Colombia blames FARC for village bombing
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica, June 29 (UPI) -- The
Colombian government Friday told the Inter-American Court of Human
Rights it isn't responsible for a 1998 bombing that killed 17 people.
Colombia is petitioning the court to revoke its March ruling ordering it to pay compensation to the 27 people who were injured and the families of those who were killed in the explosion in Santo Domingo, Arauca department, Colombia Reports said.
Two members of Colombia's air force were sentenced to 30 years in prison for their roles in the killings. The IACHR ruled the bomb was dropped from an air force helicopter, while the government asserts the explosion was from a car bomb planted by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
Forensic evidence "unequivocally show that those who committed the bombing were not state agents," Rafael Nieto, Colombia's ambassador to the Organization of American States, told the court Friday.
"There is a distance of more than 600 meters between the place where the device was dropped and the civilian population, which is why it could not have fallen, in any way, on the village," Nieto said, explaining the air force was attacking a FARC target.
The court said it would issue a ruling "in the coming months."
Colombia is petitioning the court to revoke its March ruling ordering it to pay compensation to the 27 people who were injured and the families of those who were killed in the explosion in Santo Domingo, Arauca department, Colombia Reports said.
Two members of Colombia's air force were sentenced to 30 years in prison for their roles in the killings. The IACHR ruled the bomb was dropped from an air force helicopter, while the government asserts the explosion was from a car bomb planted by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
Forensic evidence "unequivocally show that those who committed the bombing were not state agents," Rafael Nieto, Colombia's ambassador to the Organization of American States, told the court Friday.
"There is a distance of more than 600 meters between the place where the device was dropped and the civilian population, which is why it could not have fallen, in any way, on the village," Nieto said, explaining the air force was attacking a FARC target.
The court said it would issue a ruling "in the coming months."
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