589 OF 2000

(July 6)

Official Journal No. 44,073, July 7, 2000

COLOMBIA CONGRESS

By means of which genocide, enforced disappearance, forced displacement and torture are typified; and other provisions are dictated.

DECRETA:

ARTICLE 1o. The Criminal Code will have new articles of the following tenor:

ARTICLE 268-A. Enforced disappearance. The particular person who belongs to an armed group outside the law submits to another person the deprivation of his or her freedom whatever the form, followed by his concealment and refusal to acknowledge such deprivation or to give information about his or her The whereabouts of the whereabouts, subtracting it from the amparo of the law, will be in prison of twenty-five (25) to forty (40) years, fine of five hundred (500) to two thousand (2,000) legal minimum wages in force and in interdiction of rights and public functions of five (5) to ten (10) years.

The same penalty shall be submitted, the public servant, or the individual acting under the determination or acquiescence of that person, and conduct the conduct described in the preceding paragraph.

ARTICLE 268-B. Circumstances of punitive aggravation. The penalty provided for in the previous article will be forty (40) to sixty (60) years in the following cases:

1. When the conduct is committed by the person exercising authority or jurisdiction.

2. When the conduct is committed in person with a disability that prevents it from using itself.

3. When the conduct is executed in less than eighteen (18) years, greater than sixty (60) or pregnant woman.

4. When the conduct is committed, by reason of its qualities, against the following persons: public servants, communicators, human rights defenders, candidates or candidates for positions of popular choice, union leaders, politicians or religious, against those who have witnessed punishable or disciplinary conduct, a judge of peace, or any other person for their beliefs or political opinions or for reasons that imply some form of discrimination or intolerance.

5. When the conduct is committed for reason and against the relatives of the persons mentioned in the previous numeral, until the second degree of consanguinity, second degree of affinity or first civil.

6. When committed using state assets.

7. If the victim is subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment during the time she remains missing, as long as the conduct does not set up another offence.

8. When the death or physical or mental injury occurs due to the cause or occasion of the enforced disappearance, the victim may suffer physical or mental injury.

9. When any action is committed on the victim's corpse to avoid its later identification, or to cause harm to third parties.

ARTICLE 268-C. Circumstances of punitive attenuation. The penalties provided for in Article 286-A shall be reduced in the following cases:

1. The penalty will be reduced from half (1/ 2) to the five sixes (5/ 6) parties when in a term not exceeding fifteen (15) days, the authors or participants release the victim voluntarily in similar physical and mental conditions to which he was at the time of being deprived of liberty, or providing information leading to their immediate recovery, in similar physical and mental conditions.

2. The penalty will be reduced from a third part (1/ 3) to half (1/ 2) when in a term greater than fifteen (15) days and not exceeding thirty (30) days, the authors or participants release the victim under the same conditions as stated in the previous numeral.

3. If the authors or participants provide information leading to the recovery of the missing person's corpse, the penalty will be reduced to an eighth (1/ 8) part.

PARAGRAFO. The penalty reductions provided for in this Article shall apply only to the author (s) or to participate (s) who voluntarily release the victim or provide the information.

ARTICLE 279-A. Circumstances of punitive aggravation. The penalty will be fifteen (15) to twenty (20) years in the following cases:

1. When the agent is a public servant or a particular servant acting under the determination or with the acquiescence of that one.

2. When committed in a disabled person, or in less than eighteen (18) years, or greater than sixty (60) or pregnant woman.

3. When committed by reason of its qualities, against the following persons: public servants, journalists, social communicators, human rights defenders, candidates or candidates for positions of popular choice, union leaders, political or religious, against those who have been witnesses or victims of punishable acts or disciplinary misconduct; or against the spouse, or companion or permanent companion of the persons mentioned above, or against their relatives until the second degree of consanguinity, second of affinity or first civil.

4. When committed using state assets.

5. When committed to prepare, facilitate, conceal, or secure the product or impunity for another crime; or to prevent the person from intervening in judicial or disciplinary proceedings.

ARTICLE 284-A. Forced displacement. Where, in an arbitrary manner, by violence or other co-active acts directed against a sector of the population, one or more of its members may change the place of his residence, he shall be in prison from 15 (15) to thirty (30) years, A fine of five hundred (500) to two thousand (2,000) monthly minimum legal wages in force and in interdiction of rights and public functions from five (5) to ten (10) years.

It shall not be understood as forced displacement, the population movement that the public force carries out when it has the object of the security of the population, or in the development of imperious military reasons, in accordance with international law humanitarian.

ARTICLE 284-B. Circumstances Of Punitive Aggravation. The penalty provided for in the previous article will be thirty (30) to forty (40) years, in the following cases:

1. That the agent has the status of a public servant or a particular person acting under the determination or acquiescence of that person.

2. When committed in person with a disability that prevents it from using itself, or in less than eighteen (18) years, or greater than sixty (60) or pregnant woman.

3. When committed by reason of their qualities, against the following persons: journalists, social communicators, human rights defenders, candidates or candidates for positions of popular choice, civic, community and ethnic leaders, trade unions, politicians or religious, against those who have been witnesses or victims of punishable conduct or disciplinary misconduct.

4. When committed using state assets.

5. When victims are subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

ARTICLE 322-A. Genocide. For the purpose of totally or partially destroying a national, ethnic, racial, religious, or political group acting within the framework of the law, by reason of its It will cause the death of its members, will be in prison of forty-five (45) to sixty (60) years, in fine of five hundred (500) to two thousand (2,000) monthly minimum wages in force and in interdiction of rights and functions public from five (5) to ten (10) years.

The penalty will be in prison from twenty-five (25) to forty (40) years, the fine from one hundred (100) to five hundred (500) minimum monthly legal salaries in force and the interdiction of rights and public functions from one (1) to five (5) years when with the same purpose is to commit any of the following acts:

a) Serious injury to the physical or mental integrity of group members;

b) Forced pregnancy;

c) Submission of group members to conditions of existence that have to result in their physical, total or partial destruction;

d) Take measures to prevent births within the group;

e) Trassidled by group children to another group.

ARTICLE 2o. Article 29 numeral second of the Penal Code will be as follows:

ARTICLE 29. The fact is justified when committed:

(..) 2. In compliance with legitimate authority of competent authority issued with legal formalities.

It will not be possible to recognize due obedience when it comes to genocide, enforced disappearance and torture.

ARTICLE 3o. Article 176 of the Penal Code will be as follows:

ARTICLE 176. Favorification. The person who has knowledge of the commission of the punishable conduct, and without prior concert, will help to circumvent the action of the authority or to hinder the corresponding investigation, will incur in arrest of six (6) months to four (4) years.

If the conduct is carried out with respect to crimes of genocide, enforced disappearance, torture, forced displacement, homicide, extortion, illicit enrichment, extortion, drug trafficking, narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances, The penalty will be four (4) to twelve (12) years in prison.

ARTICLE 4. Article 186 of the Penal Code will be as follows:

ARTICLE 186. Concerto para delinquir. When a number of persons are concerned with the purpose of committing crimes, each of them shall be punishable, by that fact, with imprisonment of three (3) to six (6) years.

If you act in depopulated or with weapons, the penalty will be in prison for three (3) to nine (9) years.

If the conduct is carried out to commit crimes of genocide, forced disappearance of persons, torture, forced displacement, homicide, terrorism, drug trafficking, extortion, extortion or to organize, promote, arm or finance groups In addition to the law, the penalty will be in prison for ten (10) to fifteen (15) years and a fine of two thousand (2,000) to fifty thousand (50,000) legal minimum monthly salaries in force.

The penalty will be increased from double to triple for those who organize, encourage, promote, lead, lead, constitute or finance the concert or the association for the crime.

ARTICLE 5o. Article 188 of the Penal Code will be as follows:

ARTICLE 188. Instigation of the inquiry. The one who publishes and directly incites another to the commission of a certain crime or gender of crimes, by this only fact it will incur in arrest of three (3) months to three (3) years and fine of fifty (50) to two hundred (200) minimum wages monthly legal force.

If the conduct is carried out to commit crimes of genocide, forced disappearance of persons, extortion, torture, forced removal of population or homicide, the penalty will be ten (10) to fifteen (15) years of imprisonment and a fine of five hundred (500). to a thousand (1,000) minimum legal monthly salaries in force.

ARTICLE 6o. Article 279 of the Penal Code will be as follows:

ARTICLE 279. Torture. The person who inflicts serious, physical or mental pain or suffering to a person, in order to obtain from her or from a third party information or confession, to punish her for an act for her committed or to be suspected of having committed or to intimidate her or (ii) to take action for any reason that carries out any kind of discrimination in prison from eight to fifteen years, fines of eight hundred (800) to two thousand (2,000) minimum legal wages in force, and disqualification for the exercise of rights and public functions for the same term of the custodial sentence.

In the same penalty, the one that causes serious physical sufferings for purposes other than those described in the previous paragraph.

Torture shall not be understood to mean pain or suffering arising solely from lawful sanctions or which are a normal or incidental consequence of such sanctions.

ARTICLE 7o. Article 136 (8) of the Administrative Contentious Code will have a second paragraph of the following wording:

However, the term of the expiration of the direct repair action arising from the offence of enforced disappearance shall be counted from the date on which the victim appears or in his defect since the execution of the final ruling adopted in the criminal proceedings, without prejudice to the possibility that such action may be attempted from the moment when the events which led to the disappearance occurred.

ARTICLE 8o. SEARCH COMMISSION FOR MISSING PERSONS. Create a national and permanent commission to search for missing persons in order to support and promote the investigation of the crime of enforced disappearance, with full respect for the competences institutional and the faculties of the procedural subjects.

This commission will design, evaluate and support the execution of the missing persons search plans and will form working groups for specific cases.

The Commission will be composed of the following people:

The Attorney General of the Nation or its permanent delegate.

The Attorney General of the Nation or its permanent delegate.

The Ombudsman or his permanent delegate.

The Ministry of Defense or a delegate of the Office of Human Rights of the Ministry of Defense.

The Presidential Adviser for Human Rights or its permanent delegate.

The Director of the Presidential Program for the Defense of Freedom or its permanent delegate.

The Director of the Institute of Legal Medicine or its permanent delegate.

A Representative of the Association of Relatives of Missing Detained, Asfaddes.

A representative of the non-governmental human rights organizations chosen by themselves.

PARAGRAFO. The search tasks will extend even to the cases that occurred prior to the issuance of this law.

ARTICLE 9o. NATIONAL REGISTRY OF MISSING PERSONS. The National Government will design and implement a national registry of missing persons in which all data for identification of missing persons and for the burial and exhumation of persons will be included. dead bodies of unidentified persons, which shall contain at least the following data:

1. Identity of the missing persons.

2. Place and date of the events.

3. Relationship of the corpses, exhumed or buried remains, of unidentified persons, with the indication of the place and date of the finding, conditions, characteristics, evidences, results of technical, scientific or testimonial studies and any data that leads to your identification.

The National Registry of Missing Persons will be coordinated by the National Institute of Legal Medicine and will operate at its headquarters.

In the resolution that initiated the prior investigation, or the instruction of the criminal proceedings, or the preliminary investigation or investigation in the disciplinary process, the Prosecutor or the competent official of the Attorney General's Office Nation, as the case may be, order to send all the victim's data to the register and request the necessary information to locate it.

ARTICLE 10. ADMINISTRATION OF THE PROPERTY OF PERSONS WHO ARE VICTIMS OF THE CRIME OF ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCE. The judicial authority that knows or directs the process for the crime of enforced disappearance, may authorize the spouse, partner or permanent partner, to any of the parents or the children of the missing person so that they may provisionally assume the disposition and administration of all or part of their property, as soon as they are exclusively managed. Whoever is authorized shall act as a curator in accordance with the civil laws on the matter.

The judicial officer shall forward these steps to the competent authority, who shall definitively take the relevant decisions.

PARAGRAFO 1o. The same judicial authority may authorize whoever acts as a curator to continue to receive the salary or fees to which the missing person, up to the end of two (2) years, if this is a public server.

PARAGRAFO 2o. The same treatment will have, until its release occurs. The public server that is a passive subject of the kidnapping offense.

ARTICLE 11. OBLIGATIONS OF THE STATE. Without prejudice to the extinction of the criminal action or termination of the process for any cause, in the crime of enforced disappearance of persons, the State has the permanent obligation to carry out all the actions necessary to establish the whereabouts of the victim, to know about the reasons for his disappearance and to inform his relatives about it.

ARTICLE 12. REGISTRATION OF CAPTURED AND DETAINED PERSONS. Persons deprived of liberty may remain held in establishments and institutions authorized for the purpose in the terms enshrined in the National Constitution and the law.

The State Security and Judicial Police agencies and the prison institutions will carry official records duly systematized and communicated by network at the national level of the persons captured or detained with indication of the date and time of entry, reason for the apprehension or detention, pending its status and authority to which it was placed or is available. This register will be available to anyone immediately.

Those entities shall also have a permanent free telephone line at the disposal of the citizenry to provide the information referred to in the preceding paragraph.

ARTICLE 13. URGENT SEARCH MECHANISM. If the whereabouts of a person are not known, any judicial authority may be requested, by third parties and without any need for a mandate, to immediately have an urgent search to carry out all the necessary steps, both in relation to public authorities and agencies and private individuals and places, to give with their whereabouts.

If such measures or some of them are to be carried out in places other than their jurisdiction, the judicial authority that has decreed the urgent search will request the collaboration of judges or prosecutors of the respective place, by dispatch This is to be communicated by the quickest possible route and must be immediately announced by telephone, in such a way that the physical receipt of the documentation by the commissioner is not necessary for it to start its collaboration in the urgent search.

If the person's whereabouts are found and the person has been deprived of his or her liberty by public servant, the judicial officer will immediately order his transfer to the nearest detention center within the terms set forth in the law and, if The competent authority shall initiate the process of habeas corpus.

If the person is held by individuals or on a site that is not a public dependency, it shall be immediately available, necessary for the competent authority to proceed to its rescue.

The provisions of this article apply without prejudice to the criminal and disciplinary investigations to be carried out.

Public servants have an obligation to provide their collaboration and support for compliance with the provisions of this article.

ARTICLE 14. The crimes that typify this law are not amnestible or pardonable.

ARTICLE 15. The crimes that typify this law will be the knowledge of specialized circuit criminal judges.

ARTICLE 16. REPEAL. This law expressly repeals all provisions that are contrary to it.

ARTICLE 18. VALIDITY. This law governs from its publication.

The President of the honorable Senate of the Republic,

MIGUEL PINEDO VIDAL.

The Secretary General of the honorable Senate of the Republic,

MANUEL ENRIQUEZ ROSERO.

The President of the honorable House of Representatives,

NANCY PATRICIA GUTIERREZ CASTANEDA.

The Secretary General of the honorable House of Representatives,

GUSTAVO BUSTAMANTE MORATTO.

COLOMBIA-NATIONAL GOVERNMENT

PUBLISH AND EXECUTE.

Dada en Santa Fe de Bogota, D. C., on July 6, 2000.

ANDRES PASTRANA ARANGO

The Minister of Justice and Law,

ROMULO GONZALEZ TRUJILLO.