BOGOTA— Salvatore Mancuso, who was one of the most feared paramilitary leaders in Colombia, was deported on Tuesday by the United States after serving a sentence for drug trafficking, to face pending charges with the justice system of his country, Migración Colombia informed the press.
His arrival has generated tension in case, as he warned, he reveals details of the Colombian armed conflict with implications for senior officials.
He got off the plane handcuffed, wearing a bulletproof vest and a helmet, while the police protected him with an anti-riot shield, amid a strong security operation around him at the El Dorado airport in Bogotá.
Mancuso set foot in Colombia for the first time since he was secretly extradited by the government in 2008 to the United States along with 13 other paramilitary leaders wanted for drug trafficking.
There he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to more than 15 years in prison for having directed the manufacture and shipment of more than 100,000 kilograms of cocaine.
Migration Colombia indicated in a statement that Mancuso arrived on a deportee flight from the United States and after completing the immigration procedures for his entry, he was placed in the custody of the Colombian police to face several current convictions and arrest warrants.
The most recent was issued in January and corresponds to crimes committed between 1996 and 2005 such as homicides, disappearances, forced displacements and other war crimes that caused more than 600 victims.
Mancuso was the leader of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia that fought left-wing guerrillas. He has accepted crimes since 2004, when he demobilized and appeared before the system called Justice and Peace that judges paramilitaries.
Gustavo Petro names him “peace manager”
He was appointed by the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, as a “peace manager”, a figure that allows him to collaborate in approaches with active armed groups to help in the government policy “total peace”.
The 59-year-old former paramilitary finished paying his sentence in the United States in 2020 and remained waiting to resolve his immigration situation. Until the last moment, his lawyers asked the courts to postpone his expulsion to Colombia, where Mancuso alleged that his life would be at risk. His other option was Italy, where he also has citizenship as the son of an Italian immigrant.
Recent statements by Mancuso at the JEP have generated controversy in Colombia for naming more than 300 people in his hearings, including former state officials and former presidents.
Paramilitary groups are accused of more than 205,000 homicides, 63,000 forced disappearances and 9,500 kidnappings, according to the Truth Commission, an entity without judicial functions that had the mission of helping to clarify the long conflict in Colombia.
Source: AP
