Colombia JEP Charges a Former Ecopetrol Security Chief
COLOMBIA · POLITICS
Key Facts
- —What happened The transitional justice court charged twelve people over the paramilitary takeover of Barrancabermeja between 1998 and 2000.
- —Who they are Nine are military, two are police, and one is a retired army captain who headed security at Ecopetrol’s refinery.
- —How big the case is The court documents 473 people killed or disappeared across fourteen massacres in that period.
- —The real story The court found the oil workers’ union was infiltrated by paid former paramilitaries using recording devices.
- —The catch The union was the target here, not the accuser, and the conduct dates from more than twenty years ago.
- —What comes next The court has invited Ecopetrol to a truth-building dialogue, and no company response is on the record.
Colombia’s transitional justice court has named the man it says ran an infiltration of an oil workers’ union from inside the company that employed them.
Colombia’s transitional justice court has charged twelve people over one of the country’s darkest episodes. The Colombia JEP announced the imputation on 2 September 2026.
The case covers the paramilitary takeover of Barrancabermeja between 1998 and 2000. Barrancabermeja is the refinery city on the Magdalena river.
Nine of the twelve are military and two are police. The twelfth is the one that has drawn most attention.
He is José Eduardo González Sánchez, a retired army captain. At the time he was head of security at Ecopetrol’s Barrancabermeja refinery.
What the Court Says Happened
The charges are war crimes and crimes against humanity. They include homicide, extermination, forced disappearance and persecution.
The scale is set out in the court’s own accounting. It documents 473 people killed or disappeared across fourteen massacres in that period.
The specific finding against González concerns the union. Magistrate Catalina Díaz found that he contracted at least three former paramilitary members.
Their task was to infiltrate the USO, the oil workers’ union, using recording devices. Reports from that infiltration went both to the military and to Ecopetrol.
González is quoted in the court’s material describing his own role. His mission, he said, was to link the paramilitaries and the security forces.
He added a second task. He reported intelligence drawn from both the police and the army.
Why a Union Was a Target
The answer is in the documents rather than in speculation. Military intelligence of the period classified the USO as a guerrilla front organisation.
On that basis the union was written into operational battle orders. A trade union became a military objective on paper.
The court described the pattern that followed. Organisations were threatened, their members stigmatised and prosecuted on the basis of processes later shown to have been unjustly fabricated.
That is the mechanism worth understanding. The killing was preceded by paperwork that made the killing look lawful.
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One Thing the Colombia JEP Case Is Not
It is worth being precise, because this story is easy to garble. The union here is the victim of infiltration, not the party making an allegation.
The conduct is also historic. It runs from 1998 to 2000, more than twenty-five years ago.
The person charged is a former employee, not a current officer of the company. He was a retired army captain working in corporate security.
None of that makes the finding minor. It does mean the case is about what happened then, and about what the company knew then.
What the Court Wants From Ecopetrol
The JEP has invited Ecopetrol into the process. It offered the company a dialogue space for truth-building with a restorative approach.
That is the court’s standard instrument. It lets an institution present its own account and discuss reparations without being a defendant.
No response from Ecopetrol has been recorded in coverage of the invitation. The company has not commented publicly on the imputation.
Whether it accepts will be a decision with weight. Colombia’s largest company answering for its security arrangements in the 1990s would be a first.
How the Colombia JEP Works
The court was created by Colombia’s 2016 peace agreement. Its formal name is the Special Jurisdiction for Peace.
It offers a trade. Those who acknowledge responsibility and contribute to truth receive restorative sanctions of up to eight years without ordinary prison.
Those who deny responsibility and are then convicted face up to twenty years in ordinary prison. That is the pressure the imputation creates.
An imputation is not a conviction. It is the formal statement of charges that opens the accused’s window to respond.
The Company in the Background
Ecopetrol is in an unsettled period for unrelated reasons. Five senior executives were announced as leaving in late August, effective 30 August.
They covered territorial transformation, administration, communications, strategy and refining. No reason was given publicly for any of the departures.
The company is also between chief executives. Ricardo Roa left the presidency in the summer and an interim president has been in place since.
On the numbers, production was 705,800 barrels a day in the second quarter, down 6.6 percent year on year. The Colombian state holds 88.49 percent of the shares.
None of that is connected to the Colombia JEP case, and it should not be read as if it were. It is simply the state of the company the court has now invited to the table.
More: Colombia news in English, every day from The Rio Times.
Frequently Asked Questions
What did the JEP decide?
On 2 September 2026 it charged twelve people over the paramilitary takeover of Barrancabermeja between 1998 and 2000, with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Who are the twelve?
Nine military personnel, two police officers, and José Eduardo González Sánchez, a retired army captain who was head of security at Ecopetrol’s Barrancabermeja refinery.
What is he accused of doing?
The court found he contracted at least three former paramilitaries to infiltrate the USO oil workers’ union with recording devices, with reports going to the military and to Ecopetrol.
Is Ecopetrol accused?
No. The company is not a defendant. The court has invited it to a dialogue space for truth-building and to discuss reparations, and no response has been recorded.
What is the JEP?
The Special Jurisdiction for Peace, created by Colombia’s 2016 peace agreement. Those who acknowledge responsibility face restorative sanctions of up to eight years; those who deny it risk twenty years in prison.
Sources: El Tiempo, El Espectador, Infobae, Cambio, Valora Analítik, Rio Times.
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