During Colombia's interminable battle against left-wing guerrillas, extrajudicial killings by the armed forces became the norm, according to former colonel Gabriel de Jesus Rincon.

"I didn't kill them but I contributed to allowing it to happen," Rincon, 53, told AFP in an exclusive interview.

Revelations about these illicit murders caused a huge scandal in Colombia, a country scarred by six decades of violent conflict that left eight million people either dead, disappeared or displaced.