Notorious former paramilitary Ramon Isaza gave details of how paramilitaries regularly “caught, tortured and killed” members of Pablo Escobar’s Medellin cartel during their conflict in the late 1980’s.
The former head of the AUC, alias “El Viejo”, who is currently on trial in Middle Magdalena, said that any of Escobar’s men found in one of the regions controlled by paramilitaries would be subject to torture before being killed.
During the late 1980’s, Colombia’s paramilitary groups were at war with Escobar and his Medellin cartel, the results of which were gruesome killings on both sides.
Isaza confessed that, “All of the people that we caught were killed and tortured because they were coming for me.”
“We used to not sleep and not rest. Every night we patrolled the area, defending ourselves against the enemy…doing intelligence work.”
Isaza also revealed how then-paramilitary commander Henry de Jesus Perez, who later founded the Middle Magdalena AUC, ordered his men to dismember the bodies of Escobar’s men.
Isaza, however, denied any affiliation to these acts and said that he was against such practices.
“I never had anyone dismembered, my only order was to murder, this was my order…but afterwards Henry gave the order to dismember them,” Isaza added.
The former paramilitary leader also denied having received any training from the Colombian Army or the Israeli mercenary, Yair Klein, who has claimed that he arrived to Colombia in the 1980’s to train paramilitary death squads.