The harshest sentence -- 60 years prison time -- was handed down to Carlos Ivan Silva, who confessed to killing two native leaders on Wednesday.
The victims were removing billboards praising the late leader of the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of ColombiaFARC or FARC-EP, is either a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary guerrilla organization or a drug cartel based in Colombia. It claims to represent the rural poor in a struggle against Colombia's wealthier classes, and opposes United States influence in Colombia, neo-imperialism, monopolization of natural resources by multinational corporations, and the usual raft of complaints. It funds itself principally through ransom kidnappings, taxation of the drug trade, extortion, shakedowns, and
donations. It has lately begun calling itself
Bolivarianand is greatly admired by Venezuela's President-for-Life Chavez, who seemingly fantasizes about living in the woods and kidnapping people himself. He provides FARC with safe areas along the border.
, Guillermo Leon Saenz, also known as Alfonso Cano, when they were murdered.
Four other defendants were sentenced to 40 years each for having "fired indiscriminately on other members of the community" alongside Silva, said the leader of the Northern Cauca indigenous councils association, Gabriel Pavi.
Two teenagers also placed in durance vile
Please don't kill me!
were sentenced to 20 lashes and will be held at a rehabilitation center until age 18, at which point a new assembly will reconsider their cases.
The verdicts and sentences were determined after four hours of debate by an assembly of some 3,000 members from the indigenous reserve in the Cauca province.
When crimes are committed in aboriginal territory, the punishment for the accused is decided by the community and not the ordinary justice system.
Pavi had said Friday the guerrillas were captured "in uniform and with rifles" and that "all are indigenous."