After an identification process that took more than two years, the Search Unit for Missing Persons (UBPD) returned the remains of the precursor of the Liberation Theology of Latin America and an emblem of the National Liberation Army guerrilla group. Torres Restrepo will be buried inside the National University of Colombia.

First modification: 02/17/2026 - 03:52 Last modification: 02/17/2026 - 04:10

Last Sunday, the remains of Camilo Torres Restrepo, the so-called 'guerrilla priest', were finally delivered. After the corresponding identification, the Search Unit for Missing Persons (UBPD) released the body, to which a tribute was paid for the 60th anniversary of his death.

Torres Restrepo was an icon of the National Liberation Army guerrilla, in addition to being one of the authors of the Liberation Theology of Latin America and the founder of the Sociology branch of the National University of Colombia, based in Bogotá.

The priest, who "will be buried in the ossuary vault 01 located inside the Cristo Maestro chapel" of the University - according to an official -, died on February 15, 1966 during his first combat against the Army in Patio Cemento.

Torres' remains were found by the ELN on January 22, news that was half-ratified by the Institute of Legal Medicine, in charge of carrying out the forensic analyzes to determine if it was the priest.

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Beyond the fact that his figure is controversial for playing an active role as an insurgent despite being a religious man, the Colombian and university authorities guaranteed honest treatment for Torres Restrepo.

On the one hand, President Gustavo Petro said that “it will be respected and deposited with honors”; while the vice chancellor of the National University, Carolina Jiménez, pointed out that “the value and meaning” of the deceased are “undeniable” and last week she expressed her wish that he rest in the campus chapel.

The identification process

The director of the UBPD, Luz Janeth Forero, detailed in a conference given this Monday, February 16, that the remains of Torres Restrepo were subjected to a two and a half year process to determine if it was indeed him.

“The evaluation and reconciliation of all the contextual, historical and forensic information, as well as the genetic analyses, allow us to conclude their identification with certainty,” Forero said in Bogotá.

The director added that in the procedure they had to reconstruct the events that occurred in 1966, in the department of Santander, during the fight in which the 'guerrilla priest' fought.

The investigation began in 2019 and made robust progress in the last two years thanks to an interdisciplinary team that “analyzed military criminal justice files, documentary sources and testimonies about the operation” in which Torres died.

The body, as a military source had revealed, had been transferred in 1969 to the military pavilion of the Campo Hermoso cemetery in Bucaramanga. As a result of this information, in June 2024 there was an intervention at the site and an urn with characteristics similar to those given by the military source was recovered.

“One of the bodies found presented a preliminary agreement with the biological profile of the priest, as well as with the injuries recorded in the 1966 body removal report,” Forero explained.

Read alsoColombia: Petro accepts that a commission investigate possible links between the ELN and drug trafficking

The entire treatment included individualization analysis, reassociation of bone structures, genetic studies and another step developed in Texas to guide the selection of material with higher DNA content.

After all these movements, in January 2026 a genetic match was reported with the profile of Calisto Torres, the priest's father.

Who was the 'guerrilla priest'?

Camilo Torres Restrepo, who transcended the myth as the combatant priest of the ELN, was a sociologist and the precursor of Liberation Theology in Latin America. His figure, beyond being linked to the guerrillas, has little experience on the battlefield: he barely fought in Patio Cemento, department of Santander, on February 15, 1966, the day he died.

Originally from a well-born family in Bogotá, he was born on February 3, 1929 and graduated with a degree in social sciences from the Catholic University of Leuven, in Belgium, after receiving priestly ordination.

At just 37 years old, Torres had a transcendental influence "in the development of ideas that can move the transformation processes in the country, in the construction of unity of all social, political, cultural and environmental sectors," historian and political analyst Carlos Medina Gallego, who wrote the book 'Camilo Torres Restrepo,' told the EFE agency. The United Front and Effective Love, messages for the 21st Century.

“The concept of ‘effective love’ that reflects the priest's thought is one of the most important in the construction of the social and political commitment of Christians, a love that is basically expressed in the social struggle, in the political struggle, in the commitment to change,” says Medina.

The priest joined the ranks of the ELN at the end of 1965, at a time when this organization was Marxist-Leninist in orientation and did not have such a close connection with drug trafficking.

“His name constitutes a greater burden because the ELN has transformed and linked to phenomena such as drug trafficking, illegal mining and kidnapping,” highlights Medina, author of two books referring to the guerrilla group.

After his death in combat, the Army hid his body and his grave to prevent Torres Restrepo from becoming a revolutionary icon, something that still happened for the Colombian left.

With EFE

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