BOGOTA.- The Colombian congressman for the Democratic Center, Hernán Cadavid, warned that the government of President Gustavo Petro could use the extradition of former paramilitary chief Salvatore Mancuso to “manipulate the truth”, after he was appointed as peace manager.
“I take responsibility individually, there is no doubt in my mind. They are in a strategy to bring Mancuso, use him politically and have him tour the country as a ‘peace manager’. Of course there is a political intention to use Mancuso,” said Cadavid, reported Semana.com.
The congressman recalled that Petro “said on several occasions that Mancuso had to be removed.”
“Now he brought him under the figure of peace manager. It can’t be that now everything I say becomes an absolute truth, because he is not going to say it in court. That will then become an instrument of the national government and the Special Peace Justice,” he warned.
The former paramilitary chief of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) arrived in Colombia this Tuesday extradited from the US.
Mancuso has two pending sentences in the country for its responsibility in more than 600 homicides, the forced displacement of almost 1,000 people and more than thirty forced disappearances.
The former paramilitary leader will be presented before the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), a special court that was established after the 2016 peace agreements to host the actors in the Colombian internal conflict.
However, pending is also the designation as peace manager made by the Governmentwhich, if approved, could release him immediately.
Known as “Triple Zero” during his armed past, Mancuso was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the El Aro massacre – which occurred in October 1997, when 15 people were murdered and an undetermined number had to leave their homes -, although he did not He achieved it by joining the Justice and Peace Law mechanism, promoted by former President Álvaro Uribe to demobilize paramilitaries.
The paramilitary had been in a detention center in the United States for two years, where he served a sentence for drug trafficking.
Cadavid also indicated that the extradition of Mancuso seeks to discredit former President Álvaro Uribe and that the former paramilitary chief will be “instrumented” to say what (the government) wants.
What the government says
Colombian Defense Minister Iván Velásquez said this Wednesday that the Government is confident that the former paramilitary chief’s revelations about the internal armed conflict are “very substantial.”
“There is really a lot of expectation that Salvatore Mancuso’s contribution to the truth will be very substantial,” Velásquez declared to the press during a visit to Washington, where he will meet with officials from Joe Biden’s Administration.
“He was a very important actor in the entire period of violence in the 90s and 2000s, so his contribution to the truth is really important in delving into the truth for the construction of peace,” he said.
Source: With information from Semana.com / Europa Press
