Diana López Zuleta with her father Luis López Peralta Courtesy
There are images I can’t get out of my head: the killer with his eyes trained on the corpse like daggers, the killer carrying the coffin as if it were a trophy, the killer making an infamous one in his honor give a speech the killer, unrepentant, amidst the river of people crying for my father. I was ten years old when they killed him and I grew up another daughter of violence, impunity and oblivion. After 20 years on the run from justice, the killer was convicted. This week he managed to get him into a lower security prison, in a region where his influence is greater and he left more victims.
In northern Colombia, just saying his name still causes terror: Juan Francisco Gómez Cerchar, aka Kiko. I’ve seen them lower their voices when referring to him or use euphemisms as if he could hear from prison. The list of murders he is associated with runs more than 100; The judiciary sentenced him to six. Lord and Lord of La Guajira, he was mayor and governor of the department twice. In 1997 my father, Luis López Peralta, was a councilor for Barrancas and reported him for corruption. Mayor Gómez hired two hitmen to kill him. They shot him. He arrived at the hospital injured. You didn’t care. There was an ambulance, but they decided to take him to the nearest town in a car that belonged to the killer himself. Three hours later my father bled to death.
It soon became known who it was. It was startling to think that the killer had been at the funeral, but that was his habit. Kiko Gómez ordered the assassination of his opponents or whoever dared to speak out against him, and then he left to express his condolences to the relatives. If they were poor people, he gave away the coffins and the coffee. Prosecutors and judges were at his service. Nobody examined it. The file for my father’s murder was archived a few months later. Gómez was feared in the region and honored by public and private bodies. The same year he murdered my father, the Colombian Congress gave him an award that they had to withdraw at my request.
When I returned to my father’s town, the streets seemed sad to me – the hotel where they killed him, the sardine where the killers sat waiting for him, the church, the cemetery, my grandmother’s house – but me it was the one who was sad. She threw herself into a constant, cruel duel that she hadn’t been able to do. He knew who ordered his assassination, but he wanted to know why. They told me: “Be quiet”, “Don’t ask”, “Leave everything to God”. The desolation grew within me.
***
A 27-year-old woman sits on a wooden bench. On the bench, diagonally to her, her father’s killer smiles sarcastically because he managed to bribe a witness, a relative of the victim, to testify on his behalf. He laughs because he thinks he’s won. The woman, notebook in hand, writes down every gesture, as if she suspected that she would write the scene later. She takes a deep breath and saves her tears for when she gets home. Apparent calm outside; Inside a storm. An anxious, anxious, weak woman: That’s how I remember myself a few years ago.
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Sitting there was not easy. I went straight, alone, accompanied by the lawyer Carlos Toro. My family didn’t want me to be a part of the investigation and they had no shortage of reasons: whoever reported it ended up dead. I told myself that I had to do something when I realized that Kiko Gómez wasn’t the only threat, but also my own fear. I devoted myself to rifling through files, talking to hit men, looking for newspaper files. I also delved deep into myself and realized that they took my father away from me and also the opportunity to grieve. “Prudence” and “forgiveness” were demanded of us to protect the victims, without thinking that the impunity of the murderer was also protected.
Luis López Peralta is the one standing in front of a lectern and speaking into a microphone, and Kiko Gómez is the person sitting on the right with his arms crossed
The court proceedings had to be transferred to Bogotá. In 2013, a Supreme Court prosecutor ordered the arrest of Gómez, then governor of La Guajira. He was having a drink and was revived by a Vallenato group when one of the prosecution’s agents briefed him on the order. A thunderous riot broke out: the surroundings would not allow him to be captured, and the agents were beaten. From then on, a ruse with which he tried to evade justice began: feigning illness.
The assassin received massive support: busloads of people were brought from La Guajira to hearings in Bogotá, where they marched to protest their “innocence”. Two trials for homicides and alliances with paramilitaries and criminal groups were held amid witnesses who strangely changed their versions, were under threats, or disappeared. In 2017, Gómez was sentenced twice: 40 years in prison for the murder of my father and two other people, and 55 years in another trial for three other murders.
He has tried several failed legal strategies to get out of prison, including trying to sneak into the Special Peace Court, the transitional court born after the peace deal with the FARC. But his crimes had nothing to do with the armed conflict and he never told the truth. He was about to go free when a corrupt judge sold him a sentence. He tried to get him house arrest through the wrong opinion of a doctor. Mistake.
In Colombia, it is common for criminals to play sick. When they commit their crimes they are in good health, but when justice catches them they get heart disease. Gómez enjoyed privileges in prison: a cell to himself, phones available, parties, drinks, and constant visits. Guards at Bogotá’s La Picota prison, where he was being held, confiscated prohibited items, but he was not punished.
It is not yet known how he managed it, but a few days ago Gómez Cerchar was transferred to El Bosque prison in Barranquilla, a lower-security prison coveted by criminals. According to the director of the Penitentiary and Prison Institute (Inpec), he allegedly has health problems due to the cold weather in Bogotá. The prison he chose still holds members of his criminal organization. The pavilion you are in is of minimum security, for officers who committed crimes against public administration, not murderers.
According to Colombian criminal law, he is a highly dangerous prisoner. With his transfer, the trials against him leave Bogotá for Barranquilla, where justice has always been in his favour.
***
From time to time I watch the video of my father’s funeral again. The burning sun, the inability to cry, my tense body. I’m amazed again at the killer’s words and attitude. Its cold animates my pain. There is nothing but emptiness. My father’s murder keeps haunting me.
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