100 dismembered bodies found beneath Colombian prison

Jails in Colombia often prove to be some of the most overpopulated prison facilities in Latin America, and the infamous La Modelo prison in Bogota, Colombia, is especially prone to overcrowding, according to Fox News.

Dismembered remains of prisoners and visitors were discovered in the pipes at the La Modelo prison, which houses drug traffickers, Marxist rebels and paramilitary members in what the British Mirror called a “seething cauldron of violence”.

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) – Colombian prosecutors are investigating the alleged disappearance of as many as 100 people inside a Bogota prison more than 15 years ago. Such victims include fellow inmates, visitors and people who had nothing to do with the prison, according to the Mirror.

Authorities discovered the bodies amid an ongoing case against paramilitary figures Mario Jaimes Mejía (known as El Panadero, or the Baker) and Alejandro Cárdenas Orozco (known as JJ), who have been charged with the 2000 kidnapping, rape and torture of Colombian journalist Jineth Bedoya. Both have denied the accusations on several occassions, but they have reportedly also contradicted themselves amid interrogations with prosecutors.

The Foundation for Press Freedom issued a petition to the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights in 2011 in connection with Bedoya’s case.

The Attorney General reported Thursday that in Bogotá’s Modelo prison a group of paramilitaries operated between 1999 and 2003, the period in which the disappearance and dismemberment of several people allegedly occurred.

Bedoya said this case is not only about what she had to endure but also the horrors many Colombians suffered during her country’s five-decade conflict in which guerrillas, paramilitary groups, drug traffickers and security forces fought each other. President Juan Manuel Santos has said there’s a real possibility a final accord may be reached next month.

About 100 bodies in a prison sewer in Bogota, Colombia, have caused a major investigation.