Leonardo Jaimes Marín, Committee in Solidarity with Political Prisoners (FCSPP).

Leonardo Jaimes Marín has worked as a human rights defender for 11 years, in the service of class action causes and excluded communities. Between 2001 and 2006, he was a lawyer with the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission, and since 2007 has been a part of the Committee in Solidarity with Political Prisoners (FCSPP). He explains that the level of injustice in Colombia moves him so much that he has dedicated his work to helping those persecuted by the State. Currently, Jaimes Marín, in addition to defending political prisoners, represents three victims of a supposed extrajudicial killing, a crime for which 10 members of the Group of United Action for Personal Freedom (GAULA), part of the 5^th Brigade of the Army based in Bucaramanga (Santander),[1] are being held awaiting trial. The acts took place in 2008 when, according to the lawyer, “three poor prison guards were forced into a vehicle in a Bucaramanga neighbourhood and appeared a few hours later as killed in combat.” James Marín has been threatened several times for defending the victims’ families. Last October, a man identified as a demobilised member of an illegal armed group entered James Marín’s office and announces that he was there on behalf of the Army’s GAULA. The lawyer explains that during an extended conversation, the man told James Marín “that there was an order from above” to try and kill him if the court ruled against the plaintiffs in the case. [2] That isn’t the only sensitive case this lawyer has taken on. “This means that we are at risk of any type of physical aggression,” comments Jaimes Marín, who also insists that, despite the threats, “the work of human rights defenders can not stop for any reason.” He believes that “the best way to respond to a threat is to just continue working.” Members of the FCSPPP are protected by cautionary measures of the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights. PBI has accompanied FCSPP since 1998.