Who should try the soldiers?

摘要

When the Colombian authorities found out that army officers were ramping up the body count in their war against leftist guerrillas by murdering civilians and dressing them up as rebels killed in combat they agreed in 2006 that civilian, rather than military, prosecutors should investigate reported battlefield casualties, to deter these "false positives", as they were dubbed. This directive was applied unevenly, but the army has since complained that legal uncertainty is hobbling its operations. According to an investigation by El Tiempo, a newspaper, published in May, more than 12,000 military personnel were then involved in legal proceedings, with 4,990 cases in the attorney-general's office, of which 1,700 concern alleged "false positives".