2024-07-08 13:13:52
Lawyer Beatriz Quintero, legal representative of Salvatore Mancuso, has denounced the existence of a plan to attempt against the life of the former leader of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), who is close to regaining his freedom.
According to Quintero and officials from the National Penitentiary and Prison Institute (Inpec) are believed to be involved in this alleged plot.
During an interview on the news programme on public television RTVC Noticias, Quintero said: “There are rumours, we have been told and we have been made aware – obviously I cannot reveal the sources – that at the Inpec they are waiting for a group of hitmen to set up shop outside the penitentiary institute in order to carry out an attack against him as soon as he is released.”
Quintero said that this plan is one of the reasons why Inpec has tried to prevent Mancuso’s release this week.“Until the group of people who intend to attempt to take his life is willing, settled and ready to carry out this plan, he will not be released. We are aware of this and that is why we are making this serious complaint.”
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The lawyer recalled that Mancuso has a commitment to the victims of the AUC and acts as a peacemaker, seeking that the current illegal groups, which emerged from that organization, give up their weapons. “Evidently, the role of Mr. Salvatore Mancuso Gómez is to fulfill this implicit designation within this peace process and help other armed groups to demobilize. so that they disarm, so that they can return to legality, so that they do so in better conditions perhaps than those of the extinct United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia that he led (…) his main objective is to help recompose this social fabric and so that these people who are up in arms return to civilian life,” he added.
Quintero also indicated that Mancuso is required to maintain his residence in Medellín as a condition for his release. “It would be impossible and we would have to take legal action as necessary because the right to freedom is clearly violated. The 36 hours that the Inpec has to avoid committing illegal detention would be at stake, something that it is already doing. We would have to ask for international aid, and ask the president himself to take action on the matter,” he concluded.
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