Zero hour arrived Dairo Antonio Usuga David, alias Otoniel. The former commander of the Clan del Golfo will board a plane in the next few hours for the United States, where he will have to face trial before the Southern District Court of Florida, for the crimes of drug trafficking, arms trafficking and selective homicide.
In it indictment (indictment) the Court indicates that Otoniel led an extensive war with other drug traffickers in order to control the routes for the shipment of cocaine and territorial control. These criminal actions took place in Urabá Antioquia.
In this war several drug traffickers were killed by order of Otoniel, who wanted to impose a regime of terror. To increase his power, he created links with criminal organizations in Venezuela, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Mexico and the United States.
In one of the sections of the letter, reference is made to the fact that the drug trafficker is exposed to life imprisonment, however, this is prohibited by the extradition treaty formed between the United States and Colombia.
Otoniel, who was captured on October 25, 2021, had used all kinds of judicial resources to hinder his extradition. Among these were challenges to the magistrate of the Criminal Cassation Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice who They were studying the request and submitting it to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP).
Precisely, this Tuesday the legal team of the drug trafficker had presented a replacement alleging the violation of his rights to due process and defense. This when considering that he was going to be tried twice for the same act, which is prohibited by the Political Constitution and the law.
With this request he sought to suspend the entire extradition process. SHowever, in record time the Ministry of Justice rejected this appeal, ensuring that both the Supreme Court and the Government have guaranteed their fundamental rights.
The most wanted man in the country
For ten years, Úsuga David was the most wanted man in the country. After not availing himself of the demobilization of the paramilitary groups, together with the former head of the AUC, Daniel Rendón Herrera, alias Don Mario, he formed the criminal gang of Los Urabeños. Which sought to manage drug trafficking in the ancient Urabá. This organization later became known as El Clan Úsuga and then as El Clan del Golfo.
Several of his sisters and family nucleus were part of this criminal gang. For years they were in charge of managing finances and coordinating actions once morest the civilian population and the public force.
The authorities reported that Otoniel ordered the most lurid crimes to have territorial control. In one of the largest operations carried out once morest his structure, they found documentation that revealed that he was a “sexual predator”, this by recruiting minors from the area, preferably virgins, to satisfy their aberrations.
Otoniel was captured in the midst of Operation Agamemnon carried out by the Military Forces in Cerro El Yoki, El Totumo de Necoclí township, in the heart of Urabá, Antioquia, a region that was the epicenter of the drug trafficker fight.
At that time, once morest Otoniel there were 122 arrest warrants, seven convictions for crimes related to extortion, kidnapping, aggravated homicide, conspiracy to commit a crime, terrorism, theft and drug trafficking. He is also required for extradition by a United States Court.
The request of the JEP to the Justice Ministry
On January 25, responding to the request of groups of victims, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) sent a request to the Ministry of Justice to inform it as soon as possible how it was going to arrange Otoniel’s collaboration so that testify in the judicial proceedings to which he was going to be summoned.
“What were the specific follow-up mechanisms going to be, how are the conditions imposed by the Supreme Court of Justice materialized -in practice- and made effective (…). Likewise, it must inform if these mechanisms cover the requirements of authorities of a non-judicial nature, such as the Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Coexistence and Non-Repetition, and the Search Unit for Persons Given as Disappeared in the context and due to the Armed Conflict, both from the Comprehensive System of Truth, Justice, Reconciliation and Non-Repetition”, specifies the JEP.
This following the former commander of the Clan del Golfo testified in different criminal proceedings in the JEP. Among these, the sub-cases due to false positives in Caquetá and Meta.