False positives scandal (jan 1, 2008 – jun 1, 2015)

Description:

The "false positives" scandal (Escándalo de los falsos positivos in Spanish) was a series of murders in Colombia, part of the armed conflict in that country between the government and guerrilla forces of the FARC and the ELN. Members of the military had poor or mentally impaired civilians lured to remote parts of the country with offers of work, killed them, and presented them to authorities as guerrilleros killed in battle, in an effort to inflate body counts and receive promotions or other benefit.

As of June 2012, a total of 3,350 such cases had been investigated in all parts of the country and verdicts had been reached in 170 cases. Human rights groups have charged that the judicial cases progressed too slowly. A 2018 study claims a total of 10,000 "false positive" victims between 2002 and 2010.

The name of the scandal refers to the technical term of "false positive" which describes a test falsely detecting a condition that is not present.

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