Colombia requested in extradition the former paramilitary chief Salvatore Mancuso

The former leader of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia after in 2008 the government of Álvaro Uribe extradited him to the US for drug trafficking crimes. His return was scheduled for March 27, but this would have been postponed due to the coronavirus health crisis.

The Attorney General’s Office and the Ministry of Justice submitted a request to the United States Government to extradite former paramilitary chief Salvatore Mancuso. The request was made on April 15 in order for the former leader of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) “to appear before the Colombian jurisdiction, in order to guarantee the achievement of the truth, reparation and non-repetition they deserve. the victims of the crimes attributed to him, “said the investigator.

Last January it was learned that Mancuso’s return would be imminent. This was reported by the United States Department of Justice to Ana Fabiola Castro, director of International Affairs of the Attorney General’s Office. In turn, in a brief letter, the judicial official informed the then delegate against organized crime of the investigating body, Álvaro Osorio Chacón, of this arrival in order for the dispatches of his management to have investigations against the paramilitary of origin. Cordoba are informed.

See: Mancuso would give information about Álvaro Uribe, Iván Cepeda and others in exchange for entering the JEP

In November 2019, a sentence enforcement judge from the Justice and Peace Chamber of the Bogotá Court endorsed Mancuso’s parole. According to Judge Luz Marina Zamora, who gave Mancuso the benefit of probation for submitting to the justice system created after the self-defense forces were dismantled, the former paramilitary chief already fulfilled the requirements of the Justice and Peace law to enjoy your freedom. Mainly, said the judicial official, the former head of the AUC has already been in prison for more than eight years, as contemplated by the norm.

However, at the end of January last, the Supreme Court denied him freedom after denying him an appeal that he presented in defense against a decision of the Barranquilla Chamber of Justice and Peace, which denied him the replacement of the insurance measure. The high court’s refusal was based on the fact that it has another pending investigation for money laundering of drug money and conspiracy to commit a crime. It is a process for the concealment of income of several firms, including the company 911 Limitada, in charge of providing security to establishments of chance in the north of the country.

On January 15, it was also learned that Mancuso, in a first draft of his plan for contributing to the truth and reparation to victims delivered to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), would speak of Santiago and Álvaro Uribe Vélez, Piedad Córdoba , Iván Cepeda, among others. In turn, he added facts that would demonstrate that, between 1989 and 1996, he played the role of third party “being committed to intimidation and violent deaths of people belonging to leftist groups, as well as actions of destruction and appropriation of civilian property in the municipality of Turbo, under the premise of an anti-subversive fight ”.

Mancuso has been imprisoned in Atlanta (United States) since 2008, when he was extradited for the crime of drug trafficking. From there he continued with his processes in Justice and Peace. According to the Prosecutor’s Office, Mancuso was in charge of 139 massacres, in which 837 people were murdered. Among them are El Salado, in Carmen de Bolívar, where nearly forty people were murdered in February 2000; that of El Aro, in Ituango (Antioquia), where they murdered 17 peasants, stole their property and burned the town, in 1997, and that of Mapiripán (Meta), where they executed 75 peasants, in the same year.

In October 2018, Mancuso also said that the Prosecutor’s Office and the Police allegedly have a plot against him to exclude him from the benefits offered by the Justice and Peace law, a legal framework promoted in the government of then President Álvaro Uribe to promote the demobilization of paramilitarism in Colombia. Mancuso assured at the time that he had evidence to denounce members of the Prosecutor’s Office, an investigator from the Dijín and Deivis and Leonardo Rojas Zabala, two people who, according to him, are false witnesses. Mancuso was extradited in May 2008 by the Uribe Vélez government along with Jorge 40, Macaco, among other leaders of paramilitarism.