Timeline for entries tagged “Extradition”

A chronology of events related to peace, security, and human rights in Colombia.

August 30, 2020

U.S. authorities decide to deport Salvatore Mancuso, the former maximum head of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) paramilitary confederation, back to Colombia. Then-president Álvaro Uribe extradited Mancuso and 13 other AUC leaders to the United States in 2008. Mancuso completed his U.S. prison sentence for drug trafficking in January, and has been in ICE immigration custody pending deportation since then.

The decision to deport to Colombia reverses an earlier U.S. intention to deport Mancuso to Italy, as the former paramilitary, a dual citizen of both countries, had requested. Mancuso immediately appeals to remain in the United States under the Convention Against Torture, claiming a fear for his safety if returned to Colombia.

Colombian government errors in requesting the extradition spur speculation in some quarters that the Duque government is reluctant to see Mancuso back in Colombia, where he might further reveal past cooperation between political elites and paramilitaries. Mancuso remains detained in ICE’s detention center in Irwin county, Georgia.

Tags: Extradition, Paramilitarism, U.S. Policy

June 16, 2020

Carlos Lehder, a top leader of the Medellín cartel in the 1980s who pioneered aerial cocaine transshipment to the United States, completes a lengthy sentence in U.S. prison. A dual citizen of Germany, the 70-year-old Lehder departs for Berlin.

Tags: Extradition, Organized Crime, U.S. Policy

June 4, 2020

The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) rejects former top paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso’s petition to participate in the FARC peace accords’ transitional justice system as a “third party.” As a paramilitary leader, Mancuso—who was extradited to the United States in 2008 and imprisoned for drug trafficking, but who completed his sentence in early 2020—falls within the “Justice and Peace” transitional justice system set up for the paramilitaries’ post-2006 demobilization. The JEP denies that Mancuso, one of the most senior leaders of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), could possibly have qualified as an outside supporter of paramilitaries during the pre-AUC era (late 1980s and early 1990s).

Tags: Extradition, JEP, Paramilitarism, Transitional Justice

April 15, 2020

The Prosecutor-General’s Office (Fiscalía) and Ministry of Justice submit an extradition request to the United States for Salvatore Mancuso, the former maximum leader of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) paramilitary group. The government of Álvaro Uribe extradited Mancuso and 13 other paramilitary leaders to the United States to face drug-trafficking charges in 2008; Mancuso is about to complete his U.S. sentence.

Tags: Extradition, Justice System, Paramilitarism, U.S. Policy

March 27, 2020

  • This is the day when Salvatore Mancuso, former top leader of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) paramilitary network, is scheduled to have been released from federal prison in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. He was extradited to face drug trafficking charges in May 2008. Mancuso, 55, was likely transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention; it is not clear whether he is requesting U.S. asylum or will be returned to Colombia, or whether COVID-19 is delaying his return.

Tags: Extradition, Paramilitarism, U.S. Policy

March 10, 2020

  • The JEP requires former police general Mauricio Santoyo to stand trial for his role in the 2000 disappearance of two members of the Association of Relatives of the Disappeared (ASFADDES) in Medellín. Santoyo stands accused of working with the paramilitaries who disappeared Claudia Patricia Monsalve and Ángel José Quintero when he was commander of the Medellín Police anti-kidnapping unit. He later went on to be the chief of then-president Álvaro Uribe’s security detail before being extradited to the United States to face drug charges. He was returned to Colombia in 2019.

Tags: Extradition, Human Rights, JEP, Transitional Justice, Victims

January 23, 2020

  • The U.S. Department of Justice communicates that top former paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso, who headed the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), will be returned to Colombia on March 27, twelve years after his extradition to the United States. A Colombian judge has determined that Mancuso has already served his required jail time under the “Justice and Peace” process that governed the AUC’s 2003-06 demobilization, though he must continue to cooperate with that process. Mancuso intends to collaborate with the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) because, as a landowner, he supported paramilitary groups for several years before becoming a paramilitary leader.

Tags: Extradition, Paramilitarism, Transitional Justice, U.S. Policy

January 15, 2020

  • Colombia’s Foreign Ministry sends a formal extradition request to Cuba for ELN negotiators who remain on the island. Those wanted include the group’s maximum leader, Nicolás Rodríguez alias “Gabino,” and former chief negotiator Pablo Beltrán. The ELN members were in Cuba in January 2019, when President Duque shut down peace talks following the ELN’s bloody attack on the Colombian National Police Cadet School in Bogotá. Negotiation protocols signed by the Santos government had arranged for the negotiators’ return to Colombia if talks broke down. The Duque government rejected those protocols and demand that Cuba turn the negotiators over.

Tags: Cuba, ELN, ELN Peace Talks, Extradition