Posted on 12/31/2004 12:31:57 PM PST by Alex Marko
BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - The most important rebel commander ever captured by Colombia was sent to the United States on Friday to face cocaine smuggling and kidnapping charges.
Colombia's president authorized the extradition of Ricardo Palmera, alias "Simon Trinidad," after the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by the Spanish initials FARC, failed to comply with an ultimatum to free 63 hostages including three Americans.
A federal court in Washington wants Palmera for trafficking 11 pounds or more of cocaine and involvement in kidnapping the FARC's American hostages.
Palmera, arrested in neighboring Ecuador in January, was handed to U.S. officials at a Bogota military airport and put on a U.S.-bound plane.
Wearing a bulletproof vest, his hands cuffed behind his back, the bald-headed revolutionary was seen on Colombian television shouting as he was guided to the aircraft. It was not possible to hear what he was saying.
No FARC rebel of the rank of Palmera -- a 54-year-old former banker born into Colombian high society but radicalized by a murder campaign against leftists in the 1980s -- has been sent to the United States previously.
SECOND EXTRADITION THIS MONTH
President Alvaro Uribe has increased extraditions of suspected drug traffickers to the United States. Earlier this month he handed over former Cali cartel boss Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela to U.S. agents.
But he had offered to suspend Palmera's extradition if the FARC freed its hostages by Thursday of this week.
The FARC called Uribe's ultimatum blackmail. The group wants to swap its hostages -- who include soldiers, politicians and former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt -- for 500 imprisoned rebels.
The three U.S. government contractors were captured by the 17,000-member rebel army in February 2003 when their aircraft crashed during a mission to find illegal drug crops.
Tough military action against the FARC -- fighting a 40-year-old war for socialist revolution claiming thousands of lives a year -- has given Uribe an approval rating of about 70 percent as he prepares to run for a second term in 2006.
The government regards extradition to the United States as its most fearsome punishment, partly because imprisonment there would put Palmera out of reach of amnesties granted in any future peace settlement.
CHARGES DENIED
Palmera, who has already been sentenced to decades in prison in Colombia for crimes including kidnapping, denies the U.S. charges against him. The FARC admits to "taxing" the cocaine trade and kidnapping for ransom.
"I am not a drug trafficker or a terrorist, and I will not only demonstrate that in the U.S. courts but will continue my political struggle," said Palmera, who insists on being called Simon Trinidad, in a recent jailhouse interview with newspaper El Espectador.
He became a guerrilla 20 years ago and was one of the FARC's top negotiators during failed peace negotiations with the government of former President Andres Pastrana, a friend from his youth.
His extradition could backfire on the government, said Alfredo Rangel of the think tank Seguridad y Democracia, a former defense adviser to Uribe.
"The FARC, and even Simon Trinidad himself, might be pleased with his extradition. They have won an international stage and a nationalist banner," Rangel wrote in the daily El Tiempo.
Would have been nice if the Colombian army had killed him.
The columbian army needs to wipe FARC out. By whatever it takes. They are threat to Columbia, ship vast amounts of drugs to the US and abroad, and directly associate with middle eastern terrorists groups, IRA and ETA.
Good news bump!
I don't know why however Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi come to mind after reading this post.
I guess I mis-read the headline. I was expecting a story about Columbia University importing a new faculty memner.
Libertas por Trinadad!
I'm sure that every scuzzbucket, Marxist group in this country-from the CCR to the National Council of Churches-is going to flock to this criminal's defense and turn his plight into an international cause celebre.
I'm sure that two months from now he'll be the new Lori Berenson/Che Guevara.
(Sigh.)
-good times, G.J.P.(Jr.)
Seen this yet? My schooling is going well. You coming up for my graduation in April?LOL
Isn't that Homer Simpson?
It is because they have been fighting a 20 year struggle here against water weight gain...
He maybe someone's B#*ch, inside....
Tough military action against the FARC -- fighting a 40-year-old war for socialist revolution claiming thousands of lives a year -- has given Uribe an approval rating of about 70 percent as he prepares to run for a second term in 2006.GW would be happy to go down and help him campaign. :') Or send Karl Rove. ;') Ridiculous -- a 40 year long civil war? Thousands killed every year? A rebel force 17,000 strong, and (in recent years) bankrolled by what's left of the Medellin cartel? Past gov'ts of Columbia must have been goofed on skunkweed.
This terr is looking at 188 months to life mandatory Fed joint.
Put him in a USP with lots of Marielitos in the general population....the rest will take care of itself.
Hang 'em....Hang 'em high........
Close, I'm sure the guy will be granted tenure at Columbia University.
L.O.L.....you are probably right...so much information to be learned on how to deal in drugs.....
The only thing that was accomplished in the interim was appeasing the drug barons and their hired guns, and ceding nearly 40% of the countryside to a gang of rapacious Marxist thugs.
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