the palace of justice seige

was a seige done by the well known colombian leftist communist organisation (M-19) on November 6th 1985

today a political party in the colombian parliment.

____

info

the attack was done on november 6 1985 against the supreme court of colombia in the captial city of bogotá, the communists held the whole court hostage which caused 43 civilians to be killed and 11 other civilians missing to this day. the main intent of the attack was to hold a trial against president (Belisario Betancur.)

for violating a peace treaty after the colombian military killed a high ranked M-19 guerilla commander on august 28 1985 . and the second main reason was to burn all of the information and documents along with the written evidence and important names of the members who were working for the medilin cartel to cover up pablo escobar's crimes which was originally collected to be used against him in court soon. pablo escobar allegedly had a meeting with the guerillas days prior to the attack, and paid them a sum of money for them to burn the documents in the document room. and they were successful, they burnt every piece of evidence which was gonna be used against pablo escobar in the future in court. although this has been confirmed true since the medilin cartel had sent death threats multiple times to the supreme court previously

the attack.

it happened on a peaceful afternoon at approximately 11:30 11:40AM, three vehicles carrying 35 guerillas 10 of them were women and the rest were men, the guerillas split into two groups, one group using a truck entered the basement and opened fire at everything that moved civilian or not they shot them on sight, the second group was smaller than the other, they disguised themselves with civilian clothes and they stormed the first floor of the building through the main entrance and started opening fire as they heard shots being fired from the basement, the second group killed 3 people on sight, 2 security officers and 1 building manager, at the same time both groups set up IED bombs in different parts of the building and the guerillas chanting some type of anthem, later on during their exchange of fire with the security guards they lost 1 guerilla, but later they were able to neutralise the whole building and killed each security guard one by one and then they set up posts and objects in strategic areas such us windows, entrances, hallways, stairways, and barricading some windows and doors, their main strategic part of the building was the 4th floor, the guerillas managed to capture and hold hostage 300 hundred people including the president of the supreme court, 24 justices, and 20 judges

___

the response of the colombian forces.

on the same day colombian forces

-national police

-department of security

-colombian army

gathered and attempted to potentially end the seige by negotiation or free the hostages and eliminate the guerillas, but the moment the colombian forces arrived on the scene the guerillas opened fire at them to show that they are not willing to negotiate, after all the colombian forces managed to free 200 hostageson the first day of the seige, the colombian coalition had ±100 soldiers on the scene and around 8 EE-9 cascavel infantry armored cars along with a handful of EE-1 URUTU infantry carriers which were used to bring down the huge entrance door

, intense gunfight begins and fires rise and continues till the next day

and the guerillas finally free the state councillor, the same day the guerillas asked the colombian government to allow the red cross to enter the building, but the siege was done later that day

____

casualties,

around 33 guerillas were killed

10 colombian soldiers

43 civilians killed

11 civilians missing

here are some more photos and videos of the battle.