BOGOTA—A group of Colombian soldiers were convicted Monday of killing 10 police on an anti-drugs mission two years ago, a case that highlighted the corrupting power wielded by cocaine smugglers in this Andean country.
The 15 soldiers, none of whom were wounded in the May 2006 incident, were found guilty of aggravated homicide. They had claimed the deaths were the result of a "friendly fire" accident, but prosecutors said they were bribed by drug lords to carry out the massacre.
Corruption is a chronic problem in Colombia, the world's biggest cocaine exporter.
The country was nonetheless shocked by the ambush in which witnesses said the victims shouted, "Don't shoot. We are police. We have families" before the soldiers shot hundreds of bullets from short range near the western town of Jamundi.
The judge's decision was "very just," a family member of one of the slain police officers told local television, without giving his name.
Sentences will be announced in about two weeks.
Colombia is in a four-decade-old guerrilla war driven over the last 20 years by the cocaine trade, as criminal gangs, leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitaries fight over smuggling routes.
Security has increased under conservative President Alvaro Uribe. But his international standing has been damaged by investigations showing some of his closest political allies have been in the pay of drug-running paramilitary militias formed in the 1980s to help rich Colombians fight the rebels.
He remains popular at home for sparking economic growth with his U.S.-backed security policies.
The United States has spent $5.5 billion in mostly military aid to the country over the last seven years. But U.S. congressional Democrats are blocking a free trade deal and threaten to reduce aid in part over concerns that the Colombian army continues abusing human rights.
Key U.S. lawmakers say they worry about Colombia's failure to prosecute paramilitary death squads that have killed labor union leaders as part of their dirty war against leftists.
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