Colombian army officer jailed for hacking deaths

A former Colombian army officer was sentenced to 44 years in prison for his role in the deaths of more than 245 civilians, many of whom were hacked to pieces with a power saw, officials said. Retired major Alirio Antonio Urena received the sentence for killings systematically carried out out against the local population of the town of Trujillo in western Colombia between 1986 and 1994. At the time, Urena was a commander in Colombia's Valle de Cauca state of an army brigade with ties to right-wing paramilitaries which was said to be responsible for the systematic assassinations of people in Trujillo, prosecutors said. The victims of the killings were accused of collaborating with left-wing rebels, against whom the Colombian military has been waging a decades-long war. The paramilitaries, who also are said to have close ties with drug traffickers, used power saws to dismember many of its victims. The dead included Tiberio Fernandez, a popular Catholic priest and political organizer whose body was found castrated and decapitated in the Cauca River. In 1991, justice officials had originally absolved Urena and his co-defendants.