Bogotá, Colombia – José Miguel Narváez, a former top Colombian intelligence official, was sentenced on Monday to 28 years in prison for his involvement in kidnapping Senator Piedad Córdoba in 1999.
Narváez, who later served as subdirector of Colombia’s now-dissolved intelligence agency, the Administrative Department of Security (DAS), was found guilty of ordering Córdoba’s kidnapping while he was a military instructor.
The former Senator, who was released after two weeks in captivity, died in January last year but her daughter, Natalia María Córdoba, will receive financial compensation from Narváez following the ruling.
“In this case, the conduct attributed to the defendant José Miguel Narváez consists of having induced, encouraged, and ordered the kidnapping of Senator Piedad Córdoba,” read the court sentence on Monday.
Narváez was first accused of being involved in kidnapping former senator Córdoba in 2013. However, the case was delayed because the ex-intelligence chief was also embroiled in separate investigations into his dealings with the now-defunct United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) – a paramilitary group responsible for grave human rights abuses during the country’s long-running armed conflict.
Notably, Narváez was sentenced in 2019 to 30 years in prison for masterminding the murder of famous Colombian comedian Jaime Garzón in 1999.
While Monday’s ruling may not change Narváez’s incarceration status, it is no less a landmark sentence, according to analysts.
“The sentence handed down today against José Miguel Narváez is a historic ruling,” said Gerson Arias, conflict and security investigator at the Ideas for Peace Foundation, a Colombian think tank.
“It is very important because it recognizes and reveals the network of relationships between sectors of society and sectors of the military forces with paramilitarism,” the analyst told Latin America Reports.
Narváez was an advisor to the Ministry of Defense under President Álvaro Uribe and later rose to be the Deputy Director of the DAS in 2005. He resigned soon after over a wiretapping scandal in which the agency illegally surveilled NGOs, political opponents, and journalists.
Arias explained that the investigation detailed Narváez’s evolution from developing anti-communist ideas at a military academy in the 1980s to his alliance with paramilitaries from the mid-1990s onwards.
“We are talking about a person who, since the late 1980s, has shown his deep anti-communism and then offered that anti-communism and that advice to paramilitary groups,” said Arias.
In the case of Piedad Córdoba, the court found that Narváez had provided the AUC with recordings of calls between the senator and ex-guerrillas in which they disparaged top paramilitary leader Carlos Castaño Gil. The court also concluded on Monday that Narváez “maintained ideological and operational links” with Castaño.
The case is the latest in a string of rulings tying top Colombian officials to paramilitary groups during the 1990s and early 2000s. In July, ex-President Uribe was sentenced for tampering with witnesses due to testify to his involvement with the AUC. The ruling was later thrown out for being politicized.
Featured image description: Late Senator Piedad Córdoba in 2012.
Featured image credit: Olivier Hansen via Wikimedia Commons.
