Jailed drug lord Daniel Rendon Herrera, alias “Don Mario,” is convicted for ordering the murder of a politician in the central Colombian department of Meta, El Espectador reported Thursday.
The ex-AUC member, who later went on to become one of Colombia’s most wanted drug kingpins as boss of “Los Urabeños,” confessed to his responsibility in organizing the murder of Mario Castro Bueno, representative of the Meta municipality of El Castillo.
Don Mario accepted a plea bargain and was originally given 31 and a half years but it has now been halved to 15 years and nine months.
The murder occurred in November 2002, while Don Mario was the financial leader of the AUC’s Bloque Centauros. Castro Bueno was travelling on public transport in Meta when paramilitaries took him off, gagged him and killed him with machetes.
Don Mario was captured in April 2009 and has since been cooperating with authorities under the Justice and Peace Law. He has implicated at least 26 political leaders as having had ties with paramilitaries.
The former drug lord was sentenced to 17 years in January for a similar crime involving the murder of a lawyer in 2003.
Prison sentences in Colombia run concurrently rather than consecutively.