NY.- On August 8, a federal judge in New York will impose the sentence on the former Colombian kingpin of the dangerous Clan del Golfo, Dairo Antonio Úsuga David, alias “Otoniel”, after having pleaded guilty last January to drug trafficking charges.
The United States Federal Prosecutor’s Office sent a letter to the judge in the case, Dora Irizarry, in which she requests that she impose 45 years in prison on the Colombian, arrested in October 2021 in his country and extradited to the United States. in May 2022 .
According to the extradition agreement, the US justice system will not be able to impose life imprisonment on him, since this penalty does not exist in Colombia.
In his first appearance in court in the US, “Otoniel”, whom the authorities considered “one of the most dangerous and wanted drug lords in the world”, pleaded “not guilty” but in January he took a turn and pleaded guilty.
In an 11-page letter sent to Irizarry, the Prosecutor’s Office requests this punishment, which it considers “sufficient but not greater than necessary” to Úsuga David, who pleaded guilty to charges of working in a criminal organization, maritime conspiracy to the introduction of narcotics into the United States and conspiracy to distribute narcotics.
The Prosecutor’s Office explains in the letter the reasons for requesting that sentence and recalls that for almost two decades he was the leader “of a powerful and violent terrorist, paramilitary, and drug-trafficking organization based in Colombia that participated in countless acts of violence, responsible for the distribution extensive cocaine shipments to the United States,” referring to the Clan del Golfo.
It also says that since 1997 “Otoniel”, 51, was a member of the paramilitary organization and drug trafficking United Self-Defenses of Colombia (AUC), and that he participated in an armed conflict against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Colombia’s main guerrilla group, among other reasons.
The judge also received letters from relatives of victims of Clan de Golfo’s activities, including the widow of police officer John Gelber Rojas Colmenares, who died in February 2017 while doing his job.
The widow asks the judge for “justice for my daughter, for me, for John’s family, for his friends and in honor of my husband, that his death does not go unpunished.”
