Colombian court rules against extraditing warlord to U.S.

The Colombian Supreme Court has ruled against extraditing drug lord and rightist militia chief Daniel Rendon Herrera to the United States.

In Wednesday's ruling, the court said Rendon should stand trial in Colombia for charges of crimes against humanity – both those currently pending and others that may be brought in the future.

The U.S. embassy in Bogota had filed a request for the extradition of Herrera, alias “Don Mario,” on July 21, 2009, on terrorism and drug trafficking charges.

U.S. federal prosecutors accuse him of providing material support to a terrorist organization – the now-defunct AUC militia federation – and of conspiring to import, manufacture, possess and distribute cocaine in the United States.

Don Mario, captured in April of last year, was a member of the Elmer Cardenas Bloc of the AUC, which was dismantled in mid-2006 after more than 31,000 paramilitary fighters handed in their weapons.

More than 3,000 homicides and other crimes, including forced displacement and disappearance, have been attributed to the Elmer Cardenas Bloc and specifically to Don Mario and brother Freddy Rendon Herrera, who are being held in maximum-security prisons.

Both are cooperating with prosecutors from a special unit of the Attorney General's Office created to investigate and prosecute demobilized AUC fighters.

Don Mario must first appear before Colombian judicial authorities and make reparations to victims of his paramilitary activity, the Supreme Court said.

If he were to be extradited to the United States, “that would undermine the Colombian government's obligations in the fight against impunity for crimes against humanity,” the high court said.

It “would also gravely damage the rights of the victims and Colombian society, who would not have the chance to know the truth and obtain reparations for the crimes committed” by the AUC.

Rendon went underground after the AUC demobilized between the end of 2003 and mid-2006 as part of the peace process with President Alvaro Uribe's administration.

He seized control of the smuggling routes and markets of other drug warlords, including Salvatore Mancuso, Diego Fernando Murillo Bejarano and Ramiro Vanoy Murillo, all of whom were extradited by the Colombian government to the United States on May 13, 2008, to face drug and money-laundering charges.

Uribe said at the time they were extradited after violating the terms of the peace accords they had signed with his government.

The AUC encompassed most of the rightist rural security organizations created in the 1980s to fight leftist guerrillas.

Over the years, however, those groups turned into drug-running death squads.

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