Equipo Nizkor - 24 years later: only impunity is able to resist.

On the night of July 23, 2001, I was the victim of kidnapping and robbery by DAS agents, in what was the first direct attack in a series of harassment, surveillance, threats, and espionage that over several years led to a sequence of persecution and psychological torture against me, now recognized as a crime against humanity.

24 years is easy to say. More than two decades of struggling for justice, of ups and downs at the mercy of a justice system that failed to be fair, of judges and prosecutors who in some cases inept, in others accomplices, and in others brave but without the necessary experience to delve into the difficult task of unraveling the criminal structures that operate from within the state to silence and censor a journalist and threaten and torture her minor daughter.

During this time, there were some important victories: the first was the recovery of the kidnapping file that had disappeared in 2001; the second was the classification of psychological torture as a crime for the first time in the world; the third was the opening of an investigation after seven long years of preliminary inquiries, during which I was in charge, with all that this implies, of obtaining evidence and pressing for the case not to be closed; and, finally, the gradual bringing to trial of a total of nine DAS executives and two detectives, as well as the investigation order against Álvaro Uribe (reiterated five times) and Jorge Noguera.

But along with the advances, new attacks, threats, and difficulties also came, to the point that in 2018 the prosecutor in the case requested my psychiatric records dating back to when I was 10 years old (?) to try to confirm whether I was crazy before or after the torture. In 2019, I also became the only Colombian journalist to be directly censored by a judge for denouncing the release of most of the defendants due to the expiration of the statute of limitations, the paralysis of the cases, the disintegration of the process, and, with it, the achievement of impunity.

Despite the obstacles, a total of four former executives were convicted: three for accepting charges between 2014 and 2015 (Jorge Armando Rubiano, Hugo Daney Ortiz, and Carlos Arzayuz Guerrero), and one on trial (former DAS intelligence chief Enrique Ariza Rivas, in 2024). Three sentences (José Miguel Narváez, Emiro Rojas Granados, and Néstor Pachón Bermúdez) are awaiting second instance or cassation rulings, while another, that of Ronal Rivera — the material author of the attacks - was overturned by a Supreme Court that was unable to administer justice and analyze a file of more than 50,000 pages and two terabytes of digital evidence.

Just a few weeks ago, the Superior Court overturned the declaration of crimes against humanity in the Giancarlo Auqué case, the only one still awaiting a first instance ruling, due to an alleged lack of motivation that could have been remedied in the second instance. This decision is a warning of what is to come: either acquittal or preclusion of one of the most important perpetrators. And one of the most skilled as well, since he walked out the front door of the prison despite having an arrest warrant in my case and has been a fugitive for ten years.

Twenty-four years is enough. This justice, minuscule, mistreating, fallacious and incapable, does not deserve a second more of my life, time and efforts. This battle can only be resisted by impunity, which is the State strategy to which more judicial officials and security and investigative agencies debvote their time, either because they are directly responsible, because of complicity and ideological or political commitment, or because of simple ineptitude.

This is as far as it goes, Lady Justice. You will not take any more time away from my journalistic practice, my life, hobbies and affections. This is an unworthy end, but it is an end. The coming years will be for working, loving and playing chess.

Claudia Julieta Duque
Bogota, July 24, 2025

[Editor's note: Translated using DeepL]

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24 years later: only impunity is able to resist

Claudia Julieta Duque Bogota, July 24, 2025

Claudia Julieta Duque
Bogota, July 24, 2025