A lieutenant of the Colombian Army, now retired from the institutionwas charged by the prosecutor’s office with forcing three soldiers to eat cigarettes and their own vomitin events reported to have taken place in 2012 in a battalion in Boyacá Department.

The prosecution said in a statement this Wednesday that Alfred Aguirre Moreno was charged with aggravated torture, a charge that was not accepted by the defendant.

The events took place on March 25, 2012 in an army battalion in Tunja, the departmental capital, when “Three regular soldiers went to the kiosk of the military unit without permission during the day of visits and were discovered by a smoking chief.”

The officer considered this situation a “act of indiscipline” and forced the three soldiers “To swallow at least 10 cigarettes each.” According to the investigation, Aguirre also “ordered them to eat that vomit It caused them to ingest tobacco and hit one of the young people who tried to resist in the chest.”

The army said, according to the prosecution, that after the attack in front of his companions, the officer took them to the showers to bathe with ice water for an hour. Finally, he told them to go to the shelter to rest They had to be dried outsideamid the low temperatures of the mountainous region.

For all of the above, a prosecutor from the Specialized Directorate against Human Rights Violations has charged retired Lieutenant Aguirre Moreno with severe torture.