A former paramilitary member was sentenced to 56 years and 10 months in prison for his responsibility for the murders of two members of the Union Patriotica Party (UP) in 1995, newspaper El Espectador reported Thursday.
Jesus Albeiro Guisao Aras, alias “El Tigre,” was found guilty of aggravated murder for ordering the execution of UP members Humberto Pacheco Castillo and Julio Cesar Serna.
El Tigre was found to have threatened the two UP members because he believed they were aiding the leftist guerrilla organization FARC.
The UP was formed by the FARC and the Colombian Communist Party as a diplomatic arm of their movement in 1985. By the late 1990’s, the UP was obsolete with an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 of its members murdered. Most of these murders have never been prosecuted.
El Tigre is currently being held in a maximum security prison in the northeast department of Boyaca.
