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Colombia ordered to pay US$7.8 million in massacre of 12 judicial workers by paramilitaries
Submitted by Rapscallion on Sat, 06/09/2007 - 5:05pm.

The Associated Press

BOGOTA, Colombia: Colombia must pay US$7.8 million (€5.8 million) in damages to relatives of 12 judicial workers killed in a 1989 massacre by army-backed paramilitaries, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered.

The May 11 ruling made public by the victims' lawyers Friday is the largest yet against Colombia by the Costa Rica-based court, which investigates human rights violations when justice cannot be guaranteed in national courts. The judgment cannot be appealed.

"It's the first time that the state has been found guilty of collaborating in the murder of other agents of the state," Rafael Barrios, a lawyer for the victims, told The Associated Press.

President Alvaro Uribe was in New York on Friday, and a spokesman for his office said no official was available to comment on the ruling. The government previously acknowledged its responsibility in the case and has in the past paid damages ordered by the court, an autonomous branch of the Organization of American States.

The 12 victims of the La Rochela massacre were killed while investigating another paramilitary massacre of 19 merchants in Santander state. Three judicial workers survived the massacre.

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This is what RCTV wanted to see in Venezuela

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Submitted by Rapscallion on Sat, 06/09/2007 - 5:07pm.

A Fascist Dictatorship enforced by a police state and rightwing paramilitaries, who would slaughter any honest people in government, as well as thousands of union organizers, peasants and leftists, and silence free speech in Venezuela with bullets.

Rapscallion