The International Criminal Court has asked Colombia for details about government efforts to punish crimes against humanity, such as massacres, carried out by combatants in the country's war. The request for information about the thousands of such crimes committed during the Andean country's ongoing 40-year guerrilla war arrived in a letter from the court Wednesday night. It was the first ever move by the three-year-old, Netherlands-based judicial body to look at Colombia, where Marxist rebels and far-right paramilitaries take thousands of lives a year as they battle for control of cocaine-producing jungle and farmland. The request hit Colombia as lawmakers were hammering out the rules by which the government will negotiate the disbandment of illegal, far-right paramilitaries. The paramilitaries have killed thousands of people in a campaign against Marxist rebels, sometimes in cahoots with sectors of the armed forces. The court is asking for information about what the state has done to punish rebels, paramilitaries and soldiers guilty of assassination, kidnapping and human rights atrocities. --More 2327 Local Time 2027 GMT
