The lawyer of Israeli mercenary Yair Klein says Colombia’s extradition request will be denied by Israel, Caracol radio reported Friday.
The representative of Klein, who has been convicted of training Colombian paramilitaries and drug gangs, rejected the new request for extradition issued by the Colombian government Thursday.
“The Colombian petition has no legal basis. It will be automatically rejected, it is clearly a Colombian political maneuver,” defense attorney Mordechai Tzivin told Caracol.
The lawyer said that after a Russian court denied Colombia’s extradition request and instead deported Klein back to Israel, they attempted a rapprochement with the Colombian government, which was denied.
“At some point we attempted to negotiate with the Colombian government and it was flatly refused. It was in Tel Aviv, with a high member of the government, and we offered that Yair Klein stay here, serving his sentence, but the Colombian envoy rejected the offer in a very emotional way,” Tzivin told the radio station.
Klein’s lawyer also revealed that his client is writing a book that will be a “political earthquake” in Colombia.
“If my client opens his mouth, it will be an earthquake in Colombia’s political climate,” Tzivin said.
The Israeli mercenary, who has been convicted by Colombian courts of training paramilitaries in the mid 1980’s, claims that he was in fact paid by the Colombian military to “train security forces.”