Colombia on Tuesday apologized to journalist Jineth Bedoya before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights over the kidnapping, rape and torture she suffered at the hands of paramilitaries two decades ago.

Bedoya has accused the Colombian state of complicity in her ordeal.

Camilo Gomez, the director of Colombia’s National Agency for Legal Defense of the State, accepted “the international responsibility for the failings of the judicial system (and) for the non-fulfillment of the duty of due diligence in the investigation of threats” made against Bedoya.

The court — an autonomous organ of the Organization of American States (OAS) — is due to rule on Colombia’s responsibility for the violence inflicted on Bedoya, who was awarded a World Press Freedom award in 2000.

The state “asks Jineth Bedoya for forgiveness for these acts and for the damage they caused (and) recognizes that these omissions violated her rights to dignity, to a life plan, to personal integrity, to legal guarantees and legal protection,” added Gomez.

He previously accused the court of “bias” and demanded the judges be recused.

Last week, Bedoya testified to the court that in 2000 she was seized by a group of right-wing paramilitaries from outside a prison in the capital Bogota and then tortured and raped for 16 hours before being abandoned on the side of a road.

At the time, Bedoya was investigating an arms trafficking network operating out of the La Modelo prison and claimed the state, including an “influential” police chief, was complicit in her abduction.

The paramilitaries, some of whom have already been convicted for the crimes committed against Bedoya, were right-wing militias that fought left-wing guerrillas during Colombia’s bloody 60-year conflict. They were dissolved in 2006.

Bedoya says she has since suffered two decades of “persecution, intimidation and constant threats.”

The state also apologized for failing to investigate an attack on Bedoya and her mother, Luz Nelly Lima, in 1999.

“The damage caused to my mother and me for the violations we’ve suffered for more than 20 years and the continued impunity have not allowed us to close the cycle of violence and recover our lives,” said Bedoya.

She asked for protection for herself and her mother, as well as for the La Modelo prison to be closed down.

The two parties have until April 23 to present their final written arguments.

The court’s decisions are definitive and unappealable.