PBI-Colombia accompanies the CSPP on International Workers’ Day, highlights the police killing of Nicolás Neira
PBI-Colombia has posted on Instagram: “On May Day, in commemoration of International Workers’ Day, we accompanied @FCSPP in the march in Bogota. During the march, an act of remembrance was held to commemorate 20 years since the murder of Nicolás Neira, which occurred on May 1, 2005, at the hands of the security forces. This case, accompanied by @dhcolombia, is awaiting the final pronouncement of the Supreme Court. This is the first case of lethal violence in the context of social protest that has reached this high court, and the only one for which a sentence has been issued against a member of the now defunct ESMAD. This ruling could set a key precedent for other similar cases.”
The FCSPP refers to the Committee for Solidarity with Political Prisoners who Peace Brigades International has accompanied since 1998. dhColombia is the Associated Network of Human Rights Defenders who PBI has accompanied since its founding in 2016.
The ESMAD refers to the the Mobile Anti-Riot Squadron. During the National Strike in Colombia in 2021, the Canadian labour movement including the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) and the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) supported the popular call for the dismantling of the ESMAD.
In June 2023, the ESMAD was rebranded by the government of President Gustavo Petro and is now called the Dialogue and Order Maintenance Unit (UNDMO).
Photo: PBI-Colombia at May 1, 2025 march.
Supreme Court of Justice preparing “historic decision”
On May 1, El Espectador reported: “Case of young man killed in protest could change justice against police officers. During the demonstrations for Labor Day in 2005, members of the Police murdered and tried to hide the crime against Nicolás Neira. Twenty years later, the case is in the Supreme Court of Justice, which is preparing a historic decision.”
That article adds: “A former police officer who was sentenced in two instances to 17 years in prison for homicide, after it was demonstrated, until now, his full intention to shoot the victim, then 15 years old, in the head with his sidearm. Since 2022, the Supreme Court of Justice has been studying the case, at the request of the convicted person.”
Nicolas Neira
Peace Brigades International has long followed the case of the police killing of Nicolas Neira.
In September 2019, PBI-Colombia posted: “On September 16, PBI Colombia accompanied @dhColombia at the indictment hearing in the case of the minor Nicolas Neira, which began the trial for intentional homicide against an ESMAD police officer.”
Photo by Canal 1.
Background
On April 1, 2022, Infobae reported: “The Superior Court of Bogotá upheld the conviction against the Esmad patrolman for the murder of Nicolás Neira. The 18th Criminal Judge of Bogotá had sentenced him to 17 years and four months in prison. The high court resolved in second instance the appeals of the defendant’s defense, which sought to declare the process null and void on the grounds of lack of jurisdiction of the ordinary justice system and an alleged violation of due process and defense.”
Documental Amarillo has also provided this context:
“On May 1, 2005, during the mobilization of the International Labor Day, 14-year-old Nicolás David Neira Álvarez was killed in downtown Bogotá.
The person in charge is the officer Néstor Julio Rodríguez Rúa, belonging at that time to the first section of the Riot Squadron of the National Police of Colombia – ESMAD – commanded by then Captain Julio Cesar Torrijos Devia.
Senior officers of the ESMAD and the National Police tried to cover up the events by gathering their troops in order to unify the versions they would deliver to the authorities and agreed to say that Nicolás had fallen from his own height and had stuck with a bollard in head; others said that the product of a stampede had fallen and this would have caused his death.
12 years later, that is, on April 23, 2017, the then Captain Julio Cesar Torrijos Devia, went to the Attorney General’s Office and said that he had covered up the murder of Nicolás, on the orders of Captain Mauricio Infante Pinzón, and declared that the officer Néstor Julio Rodríguez Rúa, was the one who operated the weapon with which the minor, Nicolás Neira, was murdered.
In the middle of 2017 and despite the existence of multiple tests to bring Néstor Julio Rodríguez Rúa to trial, the 40th Prosecutor Specialized in Human Rights of Bogotá, decided to make a pre-agreement with the defense of the officer, he accepted charges and received benefits such as the reduction of punishment and the degradation of conduct, a pre-agreement that was accepted by the judges of the case by wrapping the criminal actions of the ESMAD with impunity, and undermining the rights to the judicial and material truth that the victims have and society.”
We continue to follow this.
Further reading: PBI-Canada interview with Oscar Ramirez of the CSPP on dismantling the ESMAD riot police in Colombia (February 16, 2023).
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