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Nine months after the death of student Dilan Cruz Medina, who died from the firing of an Esmad projectile in the November 2019 demonstrations, the Disciplinary Chamber of the Superior Council of the Judiciary decided, for the second time, to send the investigation to Military Criminal Justice.
In April and July of this year, the Supreme Court of Justice, which reviewed a guardianship of Cruz’s mother, had ordered the Judiciary to re-evaluate the jurisdiction of the investigation, taking into account more evidence from the process. After this new evaluation, the Disciplinary Chamber determined to maintain its decision of December 2019, that the case is in the Military Justice and not in the ordinary one.
(Also read: ‘Judiciary did not assess all the evidence in the Dilan Cruz case’: Court)
For the Chamber, the situation in which Captain Manuel Cubillos Rodríguez fired his mossbert shotgun with reduced lethality P141530, in which Dilan Cruz was injured, on November 23, 2019, “was generated as a result of a demonstration that became violent and that required the use of force by the National Police, being an evident act of the service that of course must be investigated but by the Military Justice “.
The entity added that the uniformed man “was complying with his constitutional and legal functions and it will be his Natural Judge who will determine whether as a consequence of this performance of functions there was any excess and whether this has any causal link with the injuries and subsequent death of the young Dilan Mauricio Cruz Medina “.
(You may be interested in: They open a disciplinary investigation against Esmad captain for the death of Dilan Cruz)
Thus, for the Disciplinary Chamber, which defined the conflict of competences between the Prosecutor’s Office and the military criminal, the events surrounding the death of the young student were an act of service on the part of the captain of Esmad, who must be tried by the 189th Military Criminal Investigation Court of Bogotá.
The entity also said that It cannot be assumed that a criminal investigation carried out against a police officer in a military criminal court is a scene of impunity, since the Political Constitution created that jurisdiction for punishable behaviors committed by members of the Public Force in service that are related to their service.
(Also: We do not trust the impartiality of military justice: mother of Dilan Cruz)
“Under no circumstances can it be interpreted that the military jurisdiction constitutes a factor of impunity, because if so, neither the Constituent Assembly nor the Legislator would have regulated its operation (…) said figure does not constitute an unjustified privilege for members of the Public Force , since the crimes committed within the service cannot be equated with those committed by an ordinary citizen “, concluded the Disciplinary Chamber on the doubts about impunity that have been raised in the case.
Abelardo de la Espriella, Captain Cubillos’s lawyer, welcomed the decision of the Judiciary to send the case to the Military Criminal Justice. “The facts under investigation were presented within the framework of an Esmad operation and in compliance with the functions and duties of the Police captain whom I have the honor to represent, the ordinary courts are not competent to carry out this investigation”, said De la Espriella.
(We recommend: Magistrates of the Disciplinary Chamber who have been in the Judiciary for 12 years should leave their positions)
And he added: “The patriots that make up our Public Force cannot be lynched by the gallery, they are its natural judges, when they act in compliance with their duty, those who must decide on the actions of law enforcement officers “.
In addition to the criminal investigation carried out against Captain del Esmado for the death of Dilan Cruz, in July of this year the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation opened a disciplinary investigation against Captain Cubillos. The control body investigates whether there was excessive use of force by the officer.
JUSTICE
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