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News > Latin America

Colombian Intelligence General Investigated for Sexual Abuse

  • Colombian soldiers.

    Colombian soldiers. | Photo: Twitter/ @diariopanorama

Published 14 October 2021
Opinion

Since 2016, 118 military personnel have been involved in cases of sexual abuse. So far, only 45 of them have been removed from the institution.

On Thursday, the Colombian Prosecutor's Office opened a disciplinary investigation into the Army Intelligence Head Brigadier-General Mario Lamprea for abusive sexual conduct perpetrated against former lieutenant Jeimy Muñoz, in Nov. 2017.

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The decision was adopted by the Disciplinary Chamber of Instruction (SDI), which ordered to perform investigatigations to verify the occurrence of the conduct and "clarify the determining motives and the circumstances of time, manner and place in which the alleged sexual abuse took place."

In 2017, Muñoz denounced to the authorities that the Army had not given her the position to which she was entitled because she is a woman. General Lamprey invited her to discuss this matter in his office, where he sexually abused her. Although Lamprea was denounced by his victim, no progress was made in this case.

"The internal disciplinary investigation has proven useless; we cannot expect that someone within the Military Forces would target such a powerful officer," journalist Daniel Coronell said.

The Prosecutor's Office finished the proceedings when Congress was going to study Lamprea's promotion. They reopened it when he became a General, but the case prosecutor advised Muñoz to "stay out of it."

In 2020, the Colombian Army was heavily criticized after cases of illegal spying, corruption, and sexual abuse of minors were revealed. An example of this was the rape of an Embera Indigenous girl by seven soldiers.

The head of the Army General Eduardo Zapateiro admitted that 118 military personnel have been involved in different cases of sexual abuse since 2016. So far, only 45 of them have been removed from the corps.

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