BOGOTA, Feb 26 (IPS) - Six months after human rights defender Julio Avella was put behind bars, a prosecutor reviewing the case threw out the charges against him, which were based on the testimony of former guerrillas and police and army reports, on the grounds that they were "contradictory, incoherent, inconsistent and illogical."
A report released this week by the U.S.-based organisation Human Rights First (HRF), "Baseless Prosecutions of Human Rights Defenders in Colombia: In the Dock and Under the Gun", says the prosecutor found that Avella had been arrested merely because of his leftist ideology, without evidence of "rebellion" or any other crime.
Activists in civil war-torn Colombia are frequently accused of belonging to the leftwing guerrillas, or of slander or defamation, and are secretly investigated for months or years before being "illegally detained," says the report.
In January 2008, all of the members of the board of directors of the Asociación Campesina del Valle del río Cimitarra (ACVC) – an organisation in central Colombia that advocates rural development and access to land by small farmers – were either under arrest or investigation. In April and May, the prosecutor reviewing the case released four of the group’s leaders, due to the "incoherent" testimony of witnesses.
But while their cases are based on the same testimony, Andrés Gil and Miguel González remain in prison accused of rebellion, and their trial is moving forward. The ACVC says the investigation was launched without notifying the accused, in violation of Colombian law.