Álvaro García Romero
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Álvaro García Romero | |
|---|---|
| Senator of Colombia | |
| In office 20 July 1994 – 19 July 2007 | |
| Succeeded by | Luzelena Restrepo Betancourt |
| Chamber of Representatives of Colombia | |
| In office 20 July 1978 – 9 July 1990 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | February 19, 1951 |
| Party | Democratic Colombia |
| Occupation | Politician |
Álvaro Alfonso García Romero (Ovejas, February 19, 1951)[1] is a Colombian politician who was a member of the Colombia Democratic Party, and was elected by popular vote to join the Senate and the House of Representatives of Colombia.[2]
He was captured on November 18, 2007 within the scandal known as parapolitics, and sentenced in 2010 to 40 years in prison for diverting public funds to form far-right paramilitary groups and for being the indirect author, according to sentence with file 32805 of February 23, 2010 of the Supreme Court, of the Massacre of 15 people in Macayepo.[3]
Macayepo massacre
Álvaro García was born in Ovejas, Sucre, and grew up on his family's cattle and agriculture farms. His family is originally from Carmen de Bolívar.
On May 18, 2002, in a debate in Congress on paramilitary politics, Senator Gustavo Petro showed documentary and audio evidence that indicated García Romero had ties to paramilitary groups in Sucre and was involved in the Macayepo massacre, a mass murder carried out on October 16, 2000 by the illegal far-right armed organization known as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) in the Macayepo district, in the jurisdiction of Carmen de Bolívar in the department of Bolívar in northern Colombia, where 15 peasants were murdered with machetes, sticks and rocks and nearly 246 families were displaced from their territory. Senator García went to the lectern and loudly called Petro a “clown,” denying the accusations.[4] His case was now being investigated by the Supreme Court of Justice.[5]
In February 2010, García Romero was found responsible for being the intellectual author of the massacre and other events related to paramilitarism,[6] such as the murder of San Onofre teacher Georgina Narváez, who had denounced electoral fraud in the department of Sucre.[7] García was sentenced to 40 years in prison. On February 25, 2021, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) accepted García into its jurisdiction but expelled him in 2022 due to his refusal to acknowledge his participation in the events for which he was convicted.[8]