Colombia's president has fired the country's head of
armed forces for verbally maligning and suggesting action be taken
against prosecutors in audio recordings revealed by a local news
magazine.
General Leonardo Barrero's phone conversation with a colonel
imprisoned over possible links to extrajudicial killings was recorded by
the prosecutors investigating corruption by senior officers in
allegedly inflated military contracts, the Semana news magazine reported.
Barrero said such prosecutions are "a bunch of crap'' and suggested
that he and others "organise a mafia'' to discredit the officials
involved.
President Juan Manuel Santos made it clear that Barrero was being
fired for 'disrespectful remarks' and not for corruption, although four
generals were forcibly retired on Tuesday in connectin with the
contracts scandal.
Semana said hundreds of hours of audio recordings in its
possession show that senior military officers received kickbacks of up
to 50 percent on deals, Reuters news agency reported.
In a statement on Tuesday, Barrero said: "After 39 years wearing the
camouflage uniform with pride, serving the country, the Military Forces,
and especially, the National Army, I leave with the tranquility and
satisfaction of having acted according to the principles and values that
govern military life."
Santos' defence minister later announced that General Juan Pablo Rodriguez would replace Barrero.
Army scandals
The corruption investigation that Semana reported on grew
out of a probe into extrajudicial killings, Jorge Perdomo, the Number
two official in the chief prosecutor's office, said on Monday, AP news
agency reported.
Colombian soldiers, the vast majority enlisted men, have been
convicted of nearly 900 extrajudicial slayings, dressing victims in
fatigues and falsely presenting them as rebels killed in combat.
The victims in the cases, known as "false positives," were mostly
down-on-their luck men lured to their deaths with bogus job promises.
They were slain to boost the body count of supposed rebels killed in
Colombia's long-running conflict.
The killings occurred principally over the decade ending in 2008,
when the scandal broke open and 27 officers were fired, three of them
generals. Santos was defence minister then.
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