A special Colombian court sentenced 12 former military officers to between five and eight years of reparation work for their involvement in 135 “false positive” deaths – killing civilians and then falsely reporting them as rebel fighters – between the years 2002 and 2005.

Thursday’s landmark ruling is the first time the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), Colombia’s transitional justice body, issued individual sentences against government security forces for crimes committed in the decades-long war with FARC rebels that ended in 2016.

From 2002 to 2008, there were 6,402 recorded victims of the “false positives,” according to the JEP, but victim groups believe the number to be higher.

Officers used the killings, which often targeted poor and disabled young people, to inflate their repu

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