The trial of Colombia's former chief of intelligence Miguel Maza began Monday in the country's highest court. Maza is charged with having played a part in the 1989 assassination of left-wing presidential candidate, Luis Carlos Galan, who was widely favored to have won that year's elections. Maza is accused of taking bribes from drug kingpin Pablo Escobar to reduce the anti-cartel politician’s security detail the day he was killed. Meanwhile, the issue of justice for victims of Colombia's five-decade armed conflict continues to weigh heavily in peace negotiations underway in Havana. Many argue that justice must be understood in a broad context, which in this case includes compensation for victims, guarantees of non-repetition, the truth about the repression, and acknowledgement of responsibility from the perpetrators. Gustavo Gallon, of the Colombia Commission of Jurists warns against reducing the question of justice to mere prison terms for the responsible parties. One of the issues that must be addressed is what's known as the "false positives scandal", whereby victims of repression were dressed up as rebel soldiers and accused of being guerrilla fighters in order to inflate the body count and deflect attention away from the government's role in human rights violations. Natalia Margarita reports from Bogota.
