Office of the Attorney General ends investigation against the man who confessed to kidnapping, torturing and raping Jineth Bedoya Lima

Cardenas told the Ministry of Justice and Peace during his September 2011 hearing of his plans to kill Jineth Bedoya on May 25, 2000. He said he was one of two paramilitary members who executed the operation which began at the entrance of La Modelo jail in Bogota and ended that night in the outskirts of Villavicencio. In addition to asking for Bedoya´s forgiveness, alias ‘JJ’ accepted the anticipated sentencing.

The Attorney General presented the Cardenas’s link to the case as a big step forward. The Colombian government has told the Interamerican Human Rights Commission (CIDH) that there will be justice soon because of Cardenas’s confession.

But in August 2013, Alejandro Cardenas retracted his confession, something that’s becoming a pattern with paramilitaries who present their versions before the Ministry of Justice and Peace.

Exactly 15 years after the kidnapping, torture and rape of Jineth Bedoya Lima, the Attorney General Office gives more weight to the perpetrator’s story, devaluing the testimony of the victim.

“I see the response of the Attorney General Office from 15 years of impunity. Their ineffectiveness hits hard, but it does not take away my desire to keep fighting for justice,” Bedoya said when she found out about the news yesterday.

The Foundation for Freedom of the Press (FLIP) considers that the decision to end the investigation, after 15 years of impunity, is an enormous step backwards in the search for justice. It sends the message that aggressions against the press are permissible and will go unpunished.