Colombia Sends Alleged Drug Trafficker to U.S.

By CHRIS KRAUL, Los Angeles Times
May 8, 2008

BOGOTA, Colombia — The Colombian government yesterday extradited a right-wing paramilitary leader to America, where he has been wanted on drug-trafficking charges.

Carlos Mario Jimenez, alias Macaco, had given himself up as part of a paramilitary demobilization program that by 2006 had seen 31,000 militia members and leaders lay down their arms, a keystone of President Uribe's plan to end this country's four-decades-long civil war.

Militia leaders including Mr. Jimenez were promised light prison sentences and immunity from extradition as long as they gave up their lives of crime, made restitution, and confessed fully for their crimes.

But Mr. Jimenez violated the terms of the agreement of the Peace and Justice Law by continuing to run his drug trafficking and illicit business empire from jail, Colombian and American officials charged yesterday.

"He's a huge one," said a high-ranking American government official when asked about the scope of Mr. Jimenez's alleged drug-trafficking activities as a former top commander of the United Colombian Auto-Defense militias, known by its Spanish initials AUC.

Paramilitary groups were formed by ranchers and farmers in the mid-1980s to defend against leftist guerrillas but in many instances morphed into mafias that committed crimes including drug trafficking, murder, extortion, and land grabs.

"We're not going to reward people who revert to crime," Mr. Uribe said yesterday at a meeting with businessmen in Medellin. His government viewed the extradition of Mr. Jimenez as a key test of whether the Peace and Justice Law had teeth, sources said.

Mr. Uribe has extradited more than 600 drug-trafficking and terror suspects to America since taking office in 2002.

Victims-rights groups opposed the extradition and went to court to try to stop it. They claimed that Mr. Jimenez has yet to give up a fortune in illegally acquired assets, including thousands of acres of farm land in the Magdelena River valley taken from ranchers and peasants.

One branch of the judicial system sided three weeks ago with the victims groups. The judges said Mr. Jimenez could not be extradited until he had returned ill-gotten gains and completed his testimony before special courts set up under the demobilization law.

On Tuesday, another court ruled that the extradition could go forward because it did not constitute "irremediable damage" to victims. The Uribe government took the decision as a green light to send Mr. Jimenez to face a federal indictment in America

In comments to reporters yesterday, American Ambassador William Brownfield said victims still would be able to file claims against Mr. Jimenez and that "the only thing that has changed is alias Macaco's physical location."