Turn in the process of Salvatore Mancuso: will be sent to Colombia

When everything seemed decided so that the former paramilitary chief Salvatore Mancuso was deported to Italy next Friday, September 4, the United States government decided to send him back to Colombia, after paying a sentence in that country of 12 years in prison for associated crimes to drug trafficking.

This was confirmed to El Colombiano by Mancuso’s lawyer, Jaime Alberto Faeres, who assured that this Sunday he will define together with his client “the strategy to follow” after the determination of the North American authorities.

This occurs just a couple of days after the Colombian government was in the eye of the hurricane for alleged negligence in the extradition process of Mancuso to face his commitment to tell the truth to the victims of the armed conflict.

This medium published an article on August 28 where the series of possible errors that were made in the process for his extradition is evidenced.

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The first extradition request was made on April 15, 2020, date by which Salvatore Mancuso had already requested the US government since February, his deportation to Italy after learning that his sentence in that country for drug trafficking, would be fulfilled. on March 27 of this year.

Sources close to the Mancuso trial told this newspaper that this was a procedure done as anyone does. “When a foreigner finishes his judicial process, he passes into the hands of Immigration. They send him an officer, they do a survey and he says that he is afraid to return to Colombia; It’s not that he told you to send me to such a country, no. The US found out if these threats were indeed real and decided ”.

The second possible mistake made by the Colombian Government was that in May it presented another request for extradition ordered by the 18th Court for the Execution of Penalties and Security Measures of Bogotá. That petition arrived in the United States on June 24, but on July 17 it had to be withdrawn because when reviewing the files, they understood that there was already a conviction and it had been unified with the Justice and Peace sentences, which is why I had served that sentence

After that error, it was the same director for the Americas of Human Right Watch, José Miguel Vivanco, who asserted through his social networks that between March and May Colombia made two requests to the United States, but they were not accepted because “ apparently the legal bases do not coincide with the legislation of that country ”.

One last error, recorded in the press release of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued last Wednesday, is that the extradition request was made in Spanish and, the document says: “once the Ministry has the translation of all the other documents provided by the Court will proceed to formalize the extradition request before the State Department ”.

In any case, according to the lawyer Faeres expressed in said article, his client is committed to collaborating with the Colombian justice system wherever he is. “If (Mancuso) arrives in Italy, the next day a letter will be drawn up in which he will be available to the Colombian authorities to continue with his case.”