Authorities hope that Salvatore Mancuso will cooperate by revealing information about hundreds of murders and forced disappearances.
Former Colombian paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso has been repatriated after serving a sentence for drug trafficking in the United States.
Salvatore Mancuso arrived at Bogotá's El Dorado airport on Tuesday. After having several requests to be sent to Italy, where he also holds citizenship, denied, he was quickly taken into police custody, with authorities hoping to shed light on hundreds of crimes that took place during the civil unrest of the 1990s and early 1990s. the 2000s.
Mancuso, now 59, arrived on a charter flight with dozens of Colombians deported after illegally entering the United States and was a leader of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia. The paramilitary group, founded by ranchers, fought leftist rebels during one of the most violent stretches of Colombia's decades-long armed conflict.
Human rights organizations and government officials expect him to cooperate with the justice system and provide information on hundreds of crimes.
Mancuso has confessed his co-responsibility in numerous massacres. He has been in prison in the United States since 2008 for drug trafficking and has indicated that he is now ready to take on the role of “defender of peace.”
“I come to continue with my commitments to the victims, but at the same time I come to put myself at the service of a peace agenda that prevents Colombia from being an eternal factory of victims and collective pain,” Mancuso said in a statement distributed to the media. communication upon arrival.
He will remain in prison in Colombia, where the courts have found him responsible for more than 1,500 acts of murder and disappearances. He will try to obtain a reduced sentence, and possibly a release from prison, from a transitional justice system created by Colombia's 2016 peace agreement.
Victims of the national conflict hope Mancuso will help shed light on hundreds of murders and forced disappearances carried out by paramilitary combatants, including extrajudicial executions in which victims were buried in mass graves.
In multiple hearings with Colombian judges, including some by teleconference while in US custody, the former paramilitary leader has discussed his dealings with politicians and the possible involvement of high-ranking officials in war crimes.
But his extradition to the United States in 2008 had slowed down investigations.
“Mancuso's return to the country must contribute to the construction of peace, justice, truth and the non-repetition of war,” saying Rodrigo Londoño, also known as Timochenko, former leader of the leftist rebel movement Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). He is the current president of the FARC political party Comunes.
“I extend my hand to Mancuso to reconcile the country and bring to light all the responsibilities of the armed conflict,” he wrote on social networks. “Peace will win!”
Colombia suffered almost six decades of civil war fought between leftist rebels, rightwing paramilitaries and the country's army. The conflict killed more than 450,000 people and displaced millions.
The FARC, the largest rebel organization, signed a peace agreement with the government and laid down its arms in 2016.
President Gustavo Petro, who took office in August 2022, has made the pursuit of “total peace” in the South American nation a key pillar of his administration. He signed a historic truce agreement with the National Liberation Army (ELN), which was expanded in early February.
