Explore 24 documented cases from Colombia. Each file separates established findings from allegations and unresolved questions, with a focus on investigation rather than graphic detail.
Senator Manuel Cepeda Vargas was assassinated in Bogotá in 1994. Two former army sergeants were convicted, while the Inter-American Court later found Colombia responsible and ordered further investigation into the broader chain of responsibility.
Open case file →Presidential candidate Íngrid Betancourt was kidnapped by FARC in 2002 and held for more than six years before Colombian security forces rescued her and 14 other hostages in Operation Jaque.
Open case file →Michel Dayana González, 15, was killed in Cali in December 2023. Harold Echeverry was captured in Villavicencio, accepted aggravated-femicide and theft charges, and received a 47-year prison sentence.
Open case file →Valentina Trespalacios was killed in Bogotá in 2023. John Poulos was convicted of aggravated femicide and evidence concealment and sentenced to 42 years and eight months; his defense announced an appeal.
Open case file →Nancy Mestre was murdered in Barranquilla in 1994. Jaime Saade was convicted in absentia, spent three decades as a fugitive in Brazil and was extradited to Colombia in 2024 to serve the homicide sentence.
Open case file →A large AUC-linked paramilitary force killed civilians in El Salado and surrounding areas in 2000. Convictions established significant responsibility, while wider accountability continued to be investigated decades later.
Open case file →Former FARC-EP leaders accepted responsibility for the 1995 assassination, but the JEP continues investigating the crime under Case 10 and ordinary justice never established a final account.
Open case file →Mauricio Leal and his mother Marleny Hernández were killed at their La Calera home in 2021. Yhonier Leal Hernández was convicted in 2024 and sentenced to more than 55 years; the defence announced an appeal and later challenged the case after a previously unpublished video became public.
Open case file →Justice minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla was assassinated in Bogotá in 1984. Material participants were convicted, but the full intellectual-responsibility record remained incomplete and the case continued to be investigated.
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Pedro Alonso López confessed to killing large numbers of girls across the Andean region and was convicted in Ecuador.
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Campo Elías Delgado carried out a sequence of killings in Bogotá in 1986.
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A Colombian serial killer whose crimes occurred in Colombia and Ecuador.
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Rosa Elvira Cely was attacked in Bogotá’s National Park in 2012 and died from her injuries.
Open case file →Seven-year-old Yuliana Samboní was abducted and murdered in Bogotá in 2016.
Open case file →The Colombian footballer was shot dead in Medellín in 1994; Humberto Muñoz Castro was convicted.
Open case file →Paramilitary forces terrorized Mapiripán for days; convictions and an Inter-American Court judgment established major responsibility while victim-count and wider-accountability questions remained complex.
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Civilians sheltering in a church were killed during fighting in 2002; former FARC-EP members later acknowledged collective responsibility before the JEP.
Open case file →Major convictions exposed a conspiracy involving organized crime and compromised state security.
Open case file →The director of El Espectador was assassinated in Bogotá in 1986; full accountability was never achieved.
Open case file →Courts convicted important participants while the wider accountability record remained complex.
Open case file →The 2003 Bogotá attack killed dozens of civilians. FARC responsibility is documented, while JEP Case 10 continues examining accountability.
Open case file →The journalist was kidnapped in 1990 and died during a January 1991 police operation; the precise source of the fatal gunfire remains disputed.
Open case file →Twelve judicial officials were murdered in 1989. Convictions and an Inter-American Court judgment established significant responsibility while wider accountability remains incomplete.
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