Reply #4: Colombia extradites first paramilitary boss to U.S. [View All]

[Judi Lynn]

Colombia extradites first paramilitary boss to U.S.

By Hugh Bronstein
Reuters
Wednesday, May 7, 2008; 10:56 AM

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia extradited Carlos "Macaco" Jimenez to the United States on Wednesday, the first time the government has sent a former right-wing paramilitary boss to face U.S. justice for drug trafficking.
(snip)

Colombia accused Jimenez of violating the terms of the peace accord by ordering crimes from his jail cell.

His extradition came as Democrats in the U.S. Congress demand that conservative President Alvaro Uribe do more to control paramilitary influence over criminal gangs before the lawmakers can back a U.S.-Colombia free trade deal.
(snip)

Funded by the country's multibillion-dollar cocaine trade, the "paras" soon grew more powerful than their original benefactors. They terrorized this Andean country in the name of fighting Marxist insurgents, using massacres and torture to intimidate rural populations long neglected by the state.

Human rights groups have criticized the peace deal for being too lenient with former militia leaders, but not all rights activists welcomed Wednesday's extradition.

"What are we going to learn about severe human rights violations that occurred in Colombia now that 'Macaco' has been extradited?" said Lisa Haugaard, head of the Latin America Working Group, a Washington-based human rights organization.

"Extradition can be a useful tool, but we need to know about the full scope of the horror that occurred in Colombia," she said. "We need to know who the 'paras' worked with and where the bodies are buried."

Uribe's international standing has been hurt by a scandal in which dozens of members of his congressional coalition are being investigated for suspected illegal dealings with paramilitary groups.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/07/AR2008050701025_pf.html

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Placing this mass murdering criminal in the U.S. on a "drug" charge removes him from having to answer for the massacres he ordered and executed during his career as a right-wing mass murdering monster in Colombia who tortured and destroyed, countless human lives.