Justice – In Time of War / Justice: el caso turra

In 1995 Giacomo Turra, a young man from Padova died in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. The case was quickly archived as an overdose – but the autopsy evidence tells another story: Giacomo Turra died at the hands of 5 police officers.

24 years old, Turra was a poet and an anthropology student. He had travelled to Colombia to study the indigenous populations of the Sierra Nevada. When his father Sisto went to Colombia to reclaim his body he found he couldn’t recognize his own son, so severe was the beating he’d received.

Giacomo’s tragedy is the beginning of a journey through present day Colombia, a country ravaged by injustice and civil war.

Alvaro Uribe, Colombia’s president, closely connected to paramilitary groups, promotes a new model of police state: the 40-year war between paramilitaries and guerrilla forces seems to have no end. And in times of war, as Colombians know all too well, human life is just the price of victory.