General (r) Yuber Armando Aranguren to be tried for alleged sexual harassment: hearings to start in June

On February 16, the Attorney General’s Office charged retired General Yuber Armando Aranguren Rodríguez in the Special Trial Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice with being responsible for the crimes of sexual harassment of one of his subordinates and “insult in circumstances of greater punishability”, for events that occurred in 2018 when he was commander of the twenty-seventh brigade of the national army in Mocoa (Putumayo).

According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, by order of the Special Trial Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, “the preparatory hearings for the oral trial will begin in June of the current year”.

The prosecution was able to determine as part of the investigation, led by the delegated prosecutor at the Supreme Court of Justice, that between July and September 2018, the officer had sexually harassed a second lieutenant, using his position and her superior authority to bully, harass and harass her physically and verbally. This behavior would have a sexual purpose and would not have been consented to by the persons concerned.

The complaint was filed with the National Army’s Office of Gender Equality, and during the investigation it was also determined that in retaliation, then-General Aranguren Rodríguez likely had transferred to another office.

The complaint against the former senior civil servant was made public in 2018 in On the radio. Then General (r) Aranguren warned that because of her, the army did not summon him to a promotion course in October 2021.

According to the story the 2nd Lieutenant told the authorities, Aranguren made all sorts of comments and innuendos to him in public and in private. “In the training of the brigade, in front of all the staff, he told me: the women do not go only for the pee, but behind the pee goes the wallet. Cabrera right? At which the whole brigade laughed and I remained in the mockery of all”.

The victim added that whenever he could, Aranguren told him “she was a mom, she was very hot, she had a very rich ass, she wanted to eat it”. The second lieutenant also said that the general, now retired, allegedly threatened to take her to a place to have sex with several officers in uniform: “He ordered me to take me on a hill where there is a repeater to lower testosterone levels. To the soldiers”.

Two other testimonies of the second lieutenant are reproduced below:

“On July 31, 2018, in a meeting with the General Staff, I told him not to talk to me in such a rude or vulgar way, that I deserved respect and he said to me: let’s something no matter how rude you say give me a kiss to see if i take the rudeness away the staff just laughed and i just said how did he could have thought of saying that to respect me, to which he replied: relax.

“On August 12, when the second Mocoa avalanche happened, after lunch he ordered me to accompany him to the town hall, that he had an appointment there (…) and then he had an appointment at the fire station, i asked him yes i could retire but he said no so i got in my personal vehicle, at that moment i I was talking on the phone with my boyfriend when Brigadier Yuber Armando Aranguren Rodríguez boldly got into my car without permission and told me to take him to the meeting (…) that there was no place in their vehicles assigned by the army, which I obeyed (…) from one moment to another, Mr. BG Yuber Armando Aranguren Rodríguez grabs my leg in a vulgar way, I had too scared, and I said the one who respects me.”

It is important to note that General (r) Aranguren was part of the 16th Brigade of the Army, based in Yopal (Casanare), a brigade which was the subject of investigations by the Special Jurisdiction for Peace for various events linked to the state. — the so-called false positives or extrajudicial executions. In May 2021, the JEP summoned Aranguren, along with 11 other generals, to give their version of these crimes.