They were also found guilty of the massive displacement of a community in San José de Uré (Córdoba)
According to the evidence obtained by the Attorney General’s Office, a specialized criminal judge sentenced three members of the ‘Clan del Golfo’ for the kidnapping and subsequent homicide of the social leader Plinio José Pulgarín Villadiego, and other criminal act that took place on January 18th, 2018, in San José de Uré (Córdoba).
People involved are Jesús Alfredo Meneses, alias El Mudo; Nicolás Gabriel Pantoja López, alias Caremalo; and Cristian de Jesús Ramírez Basilio, alias Piraña, who would be part of Virgilio Peralta Arenas substructure of this criminal organization.
In the course of the investigation, a prosecutor from Unidad Especial de Investigación (UEI) (Special Investigation Unit) confirmed that members of this illegal armed group, including alias Piraña, broke into victim’s place of residence that was located in San Pedrito neighborhood and took him against his will to an unpopulated place, where they murdered him with several rifle shots. Later, they returned to the property to intimidate the family members and told them they had to leave the area.
Simultaneously, an armed group of ‘Clan del Golfo’ gathered several residents and told them that they had to leave their lands otherwise what happened to the social leader, who served as president of the San Pedrito Communal Action Committee, would also happen to them.
For these facts, alias ‘Piranha’ was sentenced to 43 years and 5 months in prison, for the crimes of aggravated homicide, aggravated conspiracy to commit a crime, aggravated forced displacement; and manufacture, trafficking and possession of firearms, ammunition for restricted use, of exclusive use of the Armed Forces or explosives (aggravated).
On the other hand, ‘El Mudo’ and ‘Caremalo’ were convicted of the same crimes and were sentenced to 25 years and 6 months in prison.
The Office of the Attorney General makes this information public for reasons of general interest.
The information contained in this press release corresponds to the narration of the objective news provided by the officials in charge of carrying out criminal investigations within the Office of the Attorney General. By the time this communication is disclosed, the legal status of the people mentioned is still pending to be resolved by the competent judicial authority, always under the presumption of innocence contemplated by Article 29 of the Political Constitution and Article 7 of Law 906 of 2004.