Colombia’s Truth Commission revealed the names of 423 people and 58 companies that allegedly financed the expansion of paramilitary organization AUC between 1995 and 1998 within the city of Medellin. None of the people and the companies in the AUC’s financial administration were taken to court after the assassinations of multiple prosecution investigators and a series of administrative decisions that ended the investigations.
The criminal investigation could have ended the terror of the paramilitaries and their associates, Defense Minister Ivan Velasquez, who led the investigation at the time, said last year. The fact that the investigation never happened is another “blatant example of the high level of impunity regarding the involvement of civilian third parties in the financing of paramilitary groups in the country,” according to the Truth Commission.
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