While the country’s high courts commemorated the 40th anniversary of the Holocaust at the Palace of Justice, the Third Section of the Council of State issued a historic ruling condemning the Colombian State for the death of assistant magistrate Jorge Alberto Echeverry Correa, a victim of the violent events that occurred on November 6 and 7, 1985.

Jorge Alberto Echeverry, who was part of the Labor Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, lost his life in the midst of the seizure and subsequent retaking of the building by the subversive group M-19 and the military forces.

The high court determined that his death was a consequence of concurrent causes: on the one hand, the violent and terrorist action of the M-19; and on the other, the omission of the State in its protection duties and the excessive use of force during the recovery of the Palace.

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The ruling also recalls that the magistrate’s case was marked by painful confusion: for years, his family believed they had buried his remains in Manizales, until the Prosecutor’s Office verified that the body actually belonged to Bernardo Beltrán, a 24-year-old waiter who disappeared during the same tragedy.

“The seizure of the Palace of Justice was not a political feat nor an act of heroic rebellion, but rather a serious affront against the rule of law and democratic institutions”states the sentence.

Consequently, the Ministry of Defense must compensate the relatives of Judge Echeverry Correa for moral and economic damages, in addition to publishing the ruling in a national media as an act of public forgiveness. The ruling also orders that responsibility be repeated against M-19, for its direct participation in the events.

Four decades after the tragedy, this judicial decision revives the cry for memory, justice and truth in one of the darkest episodes in Colombia’s recent history.

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