Colombia’s President asks action over FARC assassination confession

Colombia’s President Ivan Duque has asked for two previous FARC rebel commanders to be suspended from Congress over the 1995 killing of a former presidential candidate.

The former rebels last week revealed in a statement to the Justice for Peace court – set up to examine atrocities perpetrated during the Colombian dispute – that they were responsible for the killing of Alvaro Gomez, a Conservative Party chief and three-time presidential nominee.

Gomez, 75, was shot stagnant by unknown criminals outside a university premises in Bogota in 1995.

Two of the signatories to the letter, former FARC leaders Julian Gallo and Pablo Catatumbo, sit in the Congress as part of the 2016 peace agreement that ended the nearly 60-year conflict.

Duque said during an official event in Bogota on Wednesday that given the importance of the crime, they “should instantly lose the essence of being a member of Congress”.

Duque, a keen critic of the peace treaty, stated the pair should quit voluntarily so as not to “re-victimise” Gomez’s family. He added that he hope the justice system would act to strip the ex-rebels of their “parliamentary delegation”.

The statement caused astonishment in the South American country, where for decades it has been generally considered that Gomez was targeted by political opponents allied with the army and drug traffickers.

Gomez’s family have rejected the FARC statement as an endeavour to divert attention from the continuing probe into the murder. They insist Gomez was targeted because he opposed former liberal President Ernesto Samper, who at the time was standing a scandal over cartel financing of his election campaign.

On Tuesday, Gallo admitted that he had delivered the order to kill Gomez on directions from his FARC superiors.