Laura Gamba Fadul
28 February 2024•Update: 28 February 2024
BOGOTA, Colombia
Salvatore Mancuso, one of the most feared paramilitary leaders in Colombia, returned to the country on Tuesday after serving 16 years in a US prison for drug trafficking crimes.
"I come to serve the victims, the institutions of the State and society in general, so that they allow me, once again, to be part of it," said Mancuso upon arriving in Colombia, from where he was extradited in 2008.
Mancuso is considered one of the bloodiest characters in the Colombian armed conflict. He is responsible for more than 1,500 massacres, displacements, forced disappearances and homicides committed by the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a right-wing paramilitary group founded by land owners and cattle ranchers who confronted leftist guerrillas. He collaborated with the Colombian army in the early 90s after his family was threatened by rebel groups who demanded extortion payments.
Thousands of victims are hoping that he will help find the truth behind murders and forced disappearances that the paramilitaries committed in the 1990s and early 2000s.
His demobilization was carried out after negotiations with the government of President Alvaro Uribe (2002-2010), which extradited him to the US along with 13 other paramilitary leaders.
The former paramilitary commander landed Tuesday afternoon in the country along with more than 100 Colombians who were deported from the US.
The government of President Gustavo Petro appointed Mancuso as a “peace manager” in August 2023 within the framework of the "Total Peace" policy that was instituted by the government to end the country's decades-long armed conflict.
“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,” said the 59-year-old man.
Mancuso was taken into police custody wearing a green helmet and a bulletproof vest. According to the Colombian prison agency, he will be placed in a cell with special surveillance, where he will not have contact with other inmates. The guards in charge of his care have been trained in the US and he will be monitored by security cameras 24 hours a day.
