Colombian judge says FARC victims’ dismay over light sentences ‘understandable’

A Colombian judge who spared leaders of the defunct guerrilla army FARC from prison has said it was “understandable” for some of the group’s thousands of victims to be dissatisfied with the ruling.

Judge Camilo Suarez on Tuesday ordered seven leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to make reparations for more than 21,000 kidnappings during the group’s withering half-century war with the state.

It was the first sentence handed down by the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, known by its Spanish acronym JEP, which was set up under a landmark 2016 peace agreement between FARC and the government.

The defendants — including the Marxist group’s leader Rodrigo Londono Echeverri, alias Timochenko — were spared prison time and instead told to take part in acts of restorative ju