The family of slain dissident guerrilla leader Guacho is allowed to take with the guerrilla’s body back to Ecuador after DNA tests confirmed his identity, according to Colombia’s Prosecutor General’s Office.
Suspicions arose about Guacho’s identity after Guacho’s father, Melido Arizala, did not match and the body was registered to a different person at the Bogota morgue.
Authorities obtained a DNA sample from Guacho’s mother who lives in Ecuador and traveled to Tumaco last Saturday to provide a sample.
The process to repatriate Guacho’s remains became a tragedy for his parents who lost their son in a military operation in southwestern Colombia last month.
After the father found out he was not the slain guerrilla leader’s biological father, further confusion arose about Guacho’s identity.
Confusion in Colombia about identity of slain FARC dissident chief
News agency Colprensa reported that Guacho’s body was not registered as Luis Alfredo Pai, a Colombian national allegedly born in 1989.
Curiously, Pai’s birth was not registered until March 3, 2016, indicating Guacho had been using a fake identity to evade authorities.
National Army commander General Nicacio Martinez, said that the DNA evidence confirmed government claims Guacho is dead.
The end of Guacho, the terror of southwest Colombia
The commander of the Frente Oliver Sinisterra (FOS), a FARC dissident group that was formed on the Ecuadorean border by dissident members of guerrilla group FARC ahead of a peace deal in late 2016.
Command of the FARC dissident group has since been taken over by “El Comandante Gringo,” who left the FARC together with Guacho and has long been his right-hand man.
Guacho’s alleged successor, “El Comandante Gringo”
The FOS controls much of the drug trafficking activities in the border region and has been vying for control over the coca-rich Tumaco municipality with paramilitary group AGC and at least two other FARC dissident groups.