Timoshenko, a former commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), has acknowledged the movement’s responsibility for the kidnapping of more than 20,000 people in the past quarter century of armed conflict between Marxist rebels and government forces.

In a lecture hall in the capital of Bogota, Rodrigo Londono, better known as Tymoshenko, sat in front of several former hostages and their families, saying that he and six other senior FARC leaders were responsible for the movement’s kidnappings.

Seven leaders are currently facing charges in the Special Peace Court, which emerged from the peace agreement that ended the conflict between government forces and rebels in 2016.

On behalf of the 13,000 FARC fighters who signed this peace agreement, the former rebel leader acknowledged “individual and collective responsibility for one of the most heinous crimes” committed by the Marxist movement.

Tymoshenko stressed that the kidnappings committed by her movement were “the result of a policy that led to crimes against humanity and war crimes.”

The other six defendants – Pablo Catatumbo, Julian Gallo, Pastor Alabi, Milton Tancel, Rodrigo Granda and Jaime Alberto Parra – all participated in public hearings that will last until Thursday. These leaders are accused of kidnapping more than 21,000 people, in addition to other crimes committed between 1990 and 2016.

Colombia’s civil war from the 1960s until the signing of a peace agreement in 2016 resulted in at least 260,000 deaths, 45,000 casualties and the displacement of 6.9 million people.