Colombia will seek the extradition of a retired police general who is currently in a U.S. prison after admitting to supporting terrorist organizations, President Juan Manuel Santos said Friday.
Santos said on a local radio station that he wants Mauricio Santoyo, the former security chief of former President Alvaro Uribe, to stand trial in Colombia once having served time in the U.S. where the retired general wil be sentenced for leaking confidential information to the AUC, a now-defunct paramilitary organization deemed terrorist by the U.S.
“I will ask the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Inspector General’s Office to accelerate the investigations. When he has served his sentence in the United States we have to request his extradition so he pays for the crimes he has not been prosecuted for in the U.S.,” Santos said in a press release.
According to the president, the retired police general must stand trial in Colombia because “he betrayed his institution and his country.”
Santoyo faces a prison sentence between 10 and 15 years in the U.S. after he admitted to leaking information regarding counter-narcotics operations and imminent arrest warrants for paramilitaries while working in the presidential palace.
Colombian authorities did not begin investigating the top official until U.S. prosecutors filed charges against the general.