2023-09-28 19:50:02
BOGOTÁ (AP) — A former commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, extradited and sentenced to 60 years in prison in the United States, will appear before the Colombian Special Jurisdiction for Peace to provide truth in the five trials for homicide, kidnapping and rape to the human rights attributed to him in the South American country.
The defense of former guerrilla Juvenal Ovidio Ricardo Palmera, alias Simón Trinidad, had requested several times that the Colombian Justice for Peace receive him as a defendant, a request that has finally been accepted by the JEP, according to a resolution that was announced on Thursday.
Trinidad was arrested in Quito, Ecuador, in January 2004 following Colombian and Ecuadorian authorities tracked him for months. After his arrest, he was transferred to Colombia, where he is prosecuted for several crimes and violations of International Humanitarian Law, related to his time in the FARC guerrilla group.
At the end of that same year, Colombia extradited the former guerrilla commander to the United States, where he had pending trials for drug trafficking and hostage-taking. In 2008, the American justice system sentenced him to 60 years in prison, which he is still serving in the Florence ADX prison, in the state of Colorado. ‘Trinidad’ is 73 years old.
For this reason, he was not included among the FARC members who accepted the peace agreement that was signed in November 2016 in Colombia.
Although it is unlikely that Trinidad will return to Colombia to respond to the judicial proceedings once morest him, his defense requested that he be received at Justice for Peace.
It is not yet known precisely what the procedure will be for ‘Trinidad’ to seek justice for peace, but according to the resolution, the former guerrilla will appear before the JEP for five processes and is expected to share elements that allow progress. of the investigations and provide truth so that he can qualify for benefits.
In his years in the insurgent organization, the former commander carried out offensive actions once morest the Colombian public force and several communities in the northern part of the country, where the former guerrilla is from.
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