Viuda del magistrado Carlos Urán responde a la Fiscalía

0:00 In the WU the report of Colonel, then, Daniel, let us recapitulate on a topic that you have studied so many years, well, since the taking of the Palace of Justice, and how interesting this turn that the investigation is giving for the truth in the case of Judge Urán, What brings the report today, Daniel, Good July. This is the Colonel report and it is the story of a family that has been seeking justice for thirty- eight years, eight months and twenty- five days. Nearly forty years have passed since the day Carlos Horacio Urán, Judge of Assistant to the Council of State, called to the University of the Andes his wife, Professor Ana María VI of Cain, to tell him that an unidentified group was taking blood and fire their place of work from the Palacio Justicia in Plaza de Bolívar in Bogotá.

1:03 Despite the terrible circumstances, the teacher told her four girls, her four daughters, that perhaps the father was alive and leaving the building, taken into terrorist action by the then guerrillas of the 19th eMe and then taken back with criminal abuse of force by the military. The dim hope became an immense joy when journalist Julia Navarrete told Ana María that she had seen Judge Durán alive leaving the palace a fleeting image recorded by the television news 24 hours records the moment when the man was wounded from the building jumping on a leg. Ana Maria got the video fragment with great difficulty and went to General Nelson Mejía' s office.

2:01 For those days, the deputy attorney for the military forces, there was no response. Instead, the video was lost in the hands of the military. On Friday, November 8, a friend of the family found the body of Carlos Horacio Urán in the facilities of the Institute of Legal Medicine in Bogotá. The body was not with the other civilians killed, but in another room with the guerrillas killed by the army. On the contra take. They didn ' t find his IDs. The body was naked, smoked and with several wounds, one in one leg, one in the chest and the one that killed him in the head made at close range. Since the first autopsy, the cause of his death is determined by the powder tattoo of the skull.

3:04 The forensic report says Abrocomillas died from a nine- millimeter projectile fired at his head to contact. So far the quote, that is, the magistrate did not kill him in the crossfire of long weapons, but a certain gun shot fired a few centimeters from his head. Soldiers and guerrillas were carrying rifles and machine guns that day. Guns weren' t the weapons used in that operation. After the nightmare of the father' s death, another followed a while later the threats to the widow began so that she would not find out more from the circumstances. She and her four daughters had to leave Colombia. They went to the United States and then to several countries in Europe. They rearmed their lives by speaking languages other than Spanish and trying to forget the terrible loss of Dad. Twenty- two years passed before anyone really cared about investigating what happened at the Palace of Justice. That person was the female prosecutor delegated to the Supreme Court, Angela María Buitrago, today Minister of Justice. In two thousand and seven, Dr Buitrago ordered the raid on the vaults of the Military Intelligence Service, the b DOS, in the northern canton of Bogotá. There

4:38 they found a document entitled Guerrillas decommissioned into combat in the Palace of Justice. To the surprise of the judicial investigators, on the list are the names of the titular judge of the Supreme Court, Manuel Gaona Cruz and the Auxiliary Judge of the Council of State Carlos los Horacio Urán. Also in the vaults of b two they found, as I say, twenty- two years later, the wallet of magistrate Durán. There he had his State Council credential, his ID card, his driver' s license, a residue of an air space and his wife' s photo, Ana María Videgai. All the documents were pierced by a bullet that went through the wallet a few months later through a source of information whose identity I will not reveal I never received the copy of the lost video two decades earlier. At that time I worked as a news director one with the group of journalists of the news and looking in archives of the media of the time, we reconstructed the facts. We found two other videos showing the same scene of Urán jumping on one leg as he left the palace. A copy of that recording was found by the prosecution in the house

6:11 of Colonel Luis Alfonso Plazas Vega, commander of the School of Cavalry, the military unit that arrived at the Palace of Justice with the tanks. I looked for Professor Ana Maria Bidegain, who worked at a university in the United States and recognized her husband. In the videos. He was also identified by Judge Nicolás Pájaro Peñaranda, who was for hours in a bathroom in the Palace of Justice with dozens of hostages, including Carlos Horacio Urán, and left the building destroyed a few seconds after him. As the same videos record it, he also managed to identify it. He remembered journalist gel N Castro, Caicedo, who was his friend and for twenty- two years had been looking for clues and investigating the circumstances of his death, with the investigations of prosecutor Angel Buitrago and also with the findings of that journalistic investigation. Seven years later, in the year two thousand and fourteen, the Inter- American Court concluded quotation marks.

7:28 It can be established that Carlos Horacio Urán was wounded in the left leg inside the Palace of Justice, but left the palace alive in the custody of state agents and his departure was not documented alive on the lists of survivors drawn up by the State. The Inter- American Court then continues. Subsequently, when he was in a state of defencelessness caused by the other injuries, he was executed. His body was stripped of clothes, washed and taken to the Institute of Legal Medicine. This court established that Carlos Horacio Urán was executed while in the custody of state agents, which constituted an extrajudicial execution. The Inter - American Court of Human Rights concludes, which orders the Colombian State in the same ruling to investigate and identify those responsible for the crime. In a few weeks, a commission of the Inter- American Court will come to Colombia to find out the progress of that investigation. Unfortunately, they will face a setback.

8:50 Last week, the prosecutor delegated to the Marlennorhuela Court, came to a conclusion that contradicts years of investigations. She says the auxiliary magistrate was killed in the hostages' bathroom I open quotation marks. Dr Carlos Horacio Urán Rojas was one of the hostages who remained from November 6 until the end of the assault in the bathroom on the 3rd floor. The documentation in this performance shows that he lost his life on November 7th of a thousand nine hundred and eighty- five, at fifteen hours in accordance with the Protocol of Necropsy. His body was raised inside the Palace of Justice at 16 hours on the 7th of November, one thousand nine hundred and eighty- five. The prosecutor does not take into account that the magistrate' s body was not found in the bathroom in which the group of hostages of the 19th eMe terrorists were present, but two floors down in the inner square of the Palace of Justice. How do you explain whether Necrops' protocol states that he died at fifteen hours that at sixteen the body had been moved only to the courtyard of the building. Dr Arjuela, who came to the case just a few months ago, concludes that the videos that support the investigation are not clear enough quotes. With the quality of the videos it was not possible to perform the requested matching. The videos are not suitable for them. Close quotes. The decision enshrines impunity for the death

10:24 of Judge Carlos Horacio uran A. This time we greet Professor Ana María Bidegain, widow of Judge Carlos Ora Ciorán. Good morning, Doctor, Good morning, Thank you, Paul Call me, Doctor, how do you receive this decision from the prosecutor plus Noruela law. Okay. I think more than surprise. I get the feeling what you' re looking for with this. I mean, he used him. It was the first thing I thought, that is, to surprise us all really shocked, because, as you well say, there is a wealth of information, which was what allowed the Inter- American Court to see its ruling and it is very particular to challenge an international court. On the other hand, it strikes me because we return to the first story that I received a few days after the event, Samuel Buitrago, who was very worked in an office next to Carlos Horacio and they knew each other well and I met me also called me and gave me that version later,

11:56 when I started to find out things and I told him, but Samuel, my good, I told you that he fell, I don' t know if there he died, but that same thing I saw is in him. When they do an interview with him, I don' t know if he has to talk to Dr Buitrago. Dr Buitrago does an interrogation and he says the same thing. Well, I know he fell, of course from the leg wounds, but I don' t know if he died on the spot. Obviously, he couldn' t testify to that, but how is this lady based only on that. He doesn' t know not only Julia Navarrete, but many other people who testified to seeing him go out alive and, apart from the videos, what happened. And there if I didn' t want to give a reflection for the whole, is that when we were in the Inter- American Court proceedings of the hearings in the city of Brasilia.

13:05 I got a message from a PhD student from a university here in the United States who needed to talk to me. I thought it was academic. When I talk to him, he tells me doctor and I was the one who took her husband out and tells me that by the time he was a person he was doing his military service in the Presidential Guard. And he tells me I' m the one who' s camouflaged the doctor. Well, I tried by all means to convince him to make that statement to justice. He said we suffered a lot because their problems were there, also because of the terrible war we have experienced in Colombia and he did not want to make a statement that I believe was decisive. And then what is My reflection is that we all have to bring our grain of sand so that there is justice and without justice there will never be peace. And in that sense, I think it' s a responsibility. We complain a lot about corruption, about corruption over the taking of illicit money, but it is also a form of corruption to not be a good citizen. And that is the reflection that I want to leave you and that this pain allows Colombians that the struggle for justice and peace, for the truth, is something that we have to do with everyone and that we really need a good administration of justice and we have to

14:43 fight for a better administration of justice. I am always very sorry to disturb her and remove the pains that have accumulated in these almost forty years. But I must ask you how, in addition to the testimonies you mention, in addition to the videos that exist, your husband was added and there are forensic studies that came to some conclusions from those new autopsies. What did those forensic studies find? Doctor would arm good then the reports are quantus de entes.

15:28 I remember that, even with the first necro that I arrived at the National University when I was called Angel Buitrago who had to talk to me, I had the few papers that I had and I immediately got a lot more evidence that I don' t know why they had never counted them, because they waited twenty- two years to do so. But, well, I went to the National University to ask a fellow forensic anthropologist to help me read it and there he told me a tremendous thing. He told me Ana Maria, this type of bullets the nine- millimeter one, I didn' t have it. The m of nineteen. Neither did the soldiers. This is the work of an officer and good And then all the information that was corroborating has gone out and it was also stating that not only does it come out alive for all the evidence that we have mentioned, but it also suffered torture and death. That' s what they told me. It was a very fast process, which is to say that' s the conclusion they came up with.

16:45 And then, from there, when I picked up the body, he probably had more injuries on his body, because it' s possible that they threw it on the first floor where they make the uprising that I don' t know if it went at 4: 00 in the afternoon. It' s me who' d doubt it was 4: 00 p m, but let' s say yes. Doctor, what are you going to do about this decision by the delegating prosecutor, the Marlenor Borla Court? There are legal mechanisms to try to do something about this. Yes, or my daughters and I have a representative, Dr Víctor Javier Velázquez, who is going to be the prosecution' s lawsuit for this decision so that there will be a reversal now. In addition, I believe that when the visits of the Inter- American Court go there would also be a discussion, not to see a new discussion on the subject by which date the visit of the Inter- American Court is scheduled. September 24th. If I' m not wrong, well,

18:18 it' s many years looking for justice, almost forty years on a road planted with obstacles. After all this, you have little reason to keep hope. Dr Jain stopped believing in justice. I don' t think I think I believe, but we all have to believe. But, obviously, I have one more reason to believe in justice, which is my husband. It ' s a martin of justice. Together with all the judges of the Court and the other people, the workers, we were left with justice. That is why I believe that with so much ahincou families, perhaps the most humble, have fought the most for truth and justice. There are times when silence only fits. I do not have a word to add that I can more clearly or eloquently conclude this report, this painful report on the road to impunity, in a case that should be in Colombia. With your permission, I ' m going to be on vacation. What' s left this week and next. This was today' s Colonel report. Thank you very much.