A court slammed Colombia’s prosecution and US prison authorities for frustrating investigations into war crimes of former paramilitary bosses who were extradited on drug trafficking charges.
Medellin’s Superior Tribunal criticized the American and Colombian authorities in a ruling that upheld judicial benefits of “Don Berna,” the heir of late drug lord Pablo Escobar.
According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, Berna has refused to take part in virtual court hearings since February last year.
Berna’s defense attorney claimed that the founder of paramilitary organization AUC hasn’t been able to attend the hearings because the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) failed to facilitate them.
Don Berna’s surprise transfer
“Don Berna” (Screenshot: Medellin Superior Tribunal)
The court said that it was set to issue a verdict about Berna’s alleged involvement in 445 crimes against humanity that left 1764 victims in August last year.
The BOP moved Berna out of the health facility of the Miami prison from where the extradited AUC chief had been cooperating with Colombian justice for more than 10 years in June, however.
Berna’s lawyers didn’t know their client had been transferred to the Terre Haute maximum security prison in Indiana until a Miami inmate alerted them about the transfer, the court confirmed.
Neither his family nor his attorney were notified about the transfer. He was simply transferred and — as the defense tells it — she came to know about it because another inmate told the paralegal, who in turn told the defendant’s defense counsel, who immediately informed the prosecution.
Medellin Superior Tribunal
The court found out in September last year that the hearings that were planned on Fridays were impossible because the Terre Haute prison would only allow virtual hearings on Monday.
The Indiana prison murders
The maximum security prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. (Image: Federal Bureau of Prisons)
Berna subsequently requested to postpone the hearings until 2022, claiming that his removal from the hospital ward had deteriorated his health and that he feared for his safety in Indiana.
The prosecution downplayed Berna’s alleged fears about other inmates’ hostility towards “snitches,” claiming that other extradited former paramilitary commanders never complained about this.
The Associated Press reported in September last year that the murders raised “fresh questions about the government’s ability to keep prisoners safe.”
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) wrote prosecutor Tatiana Garcia of Prosecutor General’s Office’s international affair desk in May that the BOP was “willing to guarantee” Berna’s “personal safety in the face of his participation in these hearings.”
The DOJ added, however that “in any case, the Colombian state… is the guarantor of Murillo’s integrity… and can adopt any measure for the security of this prisoner in the United States.”
The court dismissed the prosecution’s claims that no other former AUC chief complained about security as “none of them have been in the same prison, which has a death row and where there wasn’t even a place for video conferences.”
The court additionally contradicted the DOJ, claiming that the US Government “enjoys full autonomy when it comes to penitentiary issues.”
Berna’s security fears effectively constitute “an excessive burden that may not be imposed” while on trial, the court said.
Previous problems to investigate war crimes
The court said that the problems that followed Berna’s surprise transfer were the latest in a series that have complicated investigations into war crimes committed by the AUC.
The court blasted the decision of former President Alvaro Uribe to extradite Berna and other former paramilitary commanders without court approval in 2008.
The investigations were additionally complicated by the fact that the extradited paramilitary commanders couldn’t provide Colombian authorities with information that could be used against them in pending drug trafficking trials in the US.
Last but not least, the court said that some extradited former AUC chiefs ended their cooperation with justice in Colombia after US authorities reduced their sentences and granted them visas.
Extradition in itself is not necessarily an obstacle to learning the truth and obtaining justice and reparations, but in many cases has constituted an additional inconvenience exactly due to the internal regulations of the United States and its prisons, and to the additional difficulties for the reconstruction of the truth presented by removing the perpetrators from contact with other members of the armed group, removing from the context in which they committed the crimes and exposing to particular and indeterminate situations while they serve their sentences in a country that prioritizes its interests related to narcotics trafficking and not to the interests of thousands of victims in this country who have been waiting decades for truth, justice and reparations.
Medellin Superior Tribunal
Early release of extradited drug traffickers ‘insulting’: Colombian senator
Berna’s victims and alleged former allies waiting for decades
According to the court, more than 5,000 people became the victim of Berna after the former Medellin Cartel enforcer teamed up with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the National Police and other narcos in the early 1990’s.
The counternarcotics agents’ alliance with the drug traffickers allowed former US President Bill Clinton to congratulate his Colombian counterpart Cesar Gaviria for killing late drug lord Pablo Escobar in 1993.
I want to offer my congratulations to you and the Colombian security forces for your courageous and effective work in this case. Hundreds of Colombians, brave police officers and innocent people, lost their lives as a result of Escobar’s terrorism. Your work honors the memory of all of these victims. We are proud of the firm stand you have taken, and I pledge to you our continued cooperation in our joint efforts to combat drug trafficking.
Former President Bill Clinton
Escobar’s death allowed Berna to take over the Medellin Cartel’s enforcer army and incorporate “La Oficina de Envigado” into paramilitary organization AUC in 1997.
The Medellin crime lord increased cocaine exports to the United States to finance the AUC, which embarked on a terrorism campaign together with Colombia’s security forces.
While Berna’s drug trafficking activities helped finance the AUC, Clinton agreed to help Colombia’s security forces with billions of dollars.
The extreme violence spurred the government of former US President George W. Bush to declare the AUC a foreign terrorist organization in 2001.
In an attempt to force Berna and his paramilitary allies to demobilize, the DEA turned against their former ally and helped the DOJ indict the Medellin crime lord on drug trafficking charges in 2004.
Berna agreed to surrender to justice in 2005, but continued to run “La Oficina” with his lieutenant “Rogelio” until former President Alvaro Uribe surprisingly extradited the AUC’s former leadership in 2008.
A US court sentenced Berna to 31 years in prison in 2009 and the former AUC chief reluctantly began cooperating with Colombian justice.
La Oficina’s powerful former allies
Former US Drug car William Brownfield (Sceenshot: Wilson Center)
Former DEA agent David Tinsley helped Rogelio barter a deal with the DOJ in 2008 that allowed Berna’s successor to retire in Florida after spending seven years in a US prison.
The US Government refused to give visas to Berna’s family members in 2009 after they began receiving death threats in response to Berna’s testimony about his alleged ties to the former commander of the National Army, General Mario Monrtoya.
Earlier that year, then-US Ambassador to Colombia William Brownfield teamed up with Escobar’s cousin, Jose Obdulio Gaviria, to cover up their ties to Berna and La Oficina.
Brownfield knew Gaviria was “using paramilitaries in Medellin” to discredit a Supreme Court investigation into ties between Uribe’s cousin Mario and Medellin drug traffickers since 2008 because he had been told so by General Oscar Naranjo, the director of the National Police at the time.
Former Senator Rodrigo Lara additionally warned the ambassador that “a much more subtle Medellin Cartel is the true ‘power behind the throne’ of the Uribe administration” in 2009.
Mounting evidence indicated that Naranjo and Lara were right, but Brownfield told the US State Department that Lara’s claims were “far-fetched.”
The cover-ups worked as Bush awarded Uribe a “Medal of Freedom” in 2010 and put Brownfield in charge of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) in 2011.
As the US’ drug czar, Brownfield failed to prevent the extradition of two of Uribe’s former presidential security chiefs and former peace commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo for their ties to Berna in 2012 and 2014, or the escalating opioid crisis in the US.
Despite mounting evidence of his alleged ties to La Oficina, Brownfield remained in office at the INL until 2018 after which he joined the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Wilson Center.
