Warlord involved in hundreds of murders repatriated to Colombia after serving US drug sentence

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombian warlord Salvatore Mancuso was repatriated Tuesday after serving a drug trafficking sentence in the United States and being denied several requests to be sent to Italy, where he also has citizenship.

Mancuso arrived in Bogota's El Dorado Airport on a charter flight that also carried dozens of Colombians who were deported from the United States after illegally crossing the southern border. Mancuso was quickly taken into police custody, wearing a green helmet and a bulletproof vest.

Human rights organisations and government officials in Colombia hope that Mancuso will cooperate with the justice system and provide information about hundreds of crimes that took place when paramilitary groups fought leftist rebels in rural Colombia in the 1990s and early 2000s.

“This event marks an important step towards reconciliation and the construction of a lasting peace in Colombia,” said Fernando García, the director of Colombia's national immigration service.

Mancuso, 59, was one of the leaders of the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia, a paramilitary group founded by cattle ranchers who fought against leftist rebels during one of the most violent stretches of Colombia's decades-long armed conflict.

He will remain in prison in Colombia, where courts have judged him responsible for more than 1,500 acts of murder and disappearances. He will attempt to get a reduced sentence, and possibly a release from prison, from a transitional justice system created by Colombia's 2016 peace deal.

Victims of the nation's conflict are hoping that Mancuso helps shed light on hundreds of murders and forced disappearances carried out by paramilitary fighters, including extrajudicial executions where victims were buried in mass graves.

In multiple hearings with Colombian judges, including some by teleconference while in U.S. custody, the former warlord has spoken of his dealings with politicians, and of the potential involvement of high-ranking politicians in war crimes.

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