The biggest drug trafficker in Colombia, “Otoniel”, leader of the Clan del Golfo, was extradited to the United States on Wednesday where he is claimed by a New York court, Colombian President Ivan Duque triumphantly announced.
“I would like to inform that Dairo Antonio Usuga, alias Otoniel, has been extradited”, declared in the evening the Colombian president on Twitter, considering that “this criminal can only be compared to Pablo Escobar”, famous drug trafficker co-founder of the infamous Medellin Cartel, shot down by police in 1993.
Colombia’s most wanted drug trafficker, “Otoniel”, 50, was arrested on October 23 in the northwest of the country during a vast military operation. He has been prosecuted for drug trafficking since 2009 in a New York court and his head was priced at 5 million dollars by the United States.
“He is the most dangerous drug trafficker in the world, the murderer of social leaders and police, a rapist of children and adolescents. Today, legality, the rule of law, the public force and justice triumph”, welcomed the Colombian head of state.
Local media broadcast images of a convoy of large armored vehicles, escorted by heavily armed police, heading for Bogota airport. The presidency also published photos of “Otoniel”, handcuffed and in a gray jacket, on board a jet, shortly before the aircraft took off.
Relatives of Otoniel’s victims had requested a “suspension” of the extradition, believing that this procedure would “abstract from justice a paramilitary leader who has committed crimes against humanity in our country”. They invoked their right to know the truth and to receive reparations.
But Colombian justice finally gave the green light to his extradition, Mr. Usuga’s defense team told AFP.
And once his sentence has been served in the United States, the head of the Clan del Golfo “will return to Colombia to pay for all his crimes committed in our country”, assured the Colombian head of state on Wednesday.
– “Who’s afraid of Otoniel” –
President Duque “thanked” the Supreme Court, the Council of State as well as the JEP (a special jurisdiction investigating the armed conflict in Colombia) “for having avoided the intentional manipulations of this criminal to try to avoid this extradition” .
The detention under close surveillance in Bogota of the drug lord was marked by several incidents and controversies.
Recordings of his testimony before the Truth Commission, the body that investigates human rights violations during the armed conflict in Colombia until the signing of the 2016 peace agreement, have been stolen by unknown persons.
Colombian police also interrupted a hearing for “Otoniel”, saying they suspected an escape attempt.
“Who’s afraid of Otoniel,” headlined the independent online media Cambio, saying some wanted to silence the drug trafficker, who allegedly said during his hearings that the army continued to work in complicity with far-right paramilitaries. in some parts of the country.
According to the press, citing a JEP document, “Otoniel” implicated 63 people, allegedly linked to the Clan de Golfo, including a former minister, a former national director of the intelligence services, six former governors and four former members of the Parliament.
According to his lawyers, the drug baron also claimed to have organized his surrender.
Coming from a peasant family in the northwest of Colombia, Dairo Antonio Usuga was a far-left guerrilla, then a far-right paramilitary before becoming the head of a strong drug trafficking organization. about 1,600 men, who exported an average of nearly 300 tons of cocaine each year to around thirty countries, according to the authorities.
He succeeded as head of the Clan del Golfo to his brother, Juan de Dios known as “Giovanni”, killed by the police in 2012.
In five decades of war on drugs supported by the United States, Colombia has killed or captured several drug lords, the best known to the general public being Pablo Escobar to whom a television series has been dedicated.
But the country remains the world’s largest producer of cocaine and the United States the main market, while violence linked to trafficking continues.