Infamous Colombian drug lord Carlos Lehder, who was extradited to the U.S. in 1987, wrote a letter to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, asking to be repatriated because he has “served his time.”
“Mr President: I was extradited at the age of 37, this year I will be 61 years old… I have obeyed the laws and the jailers who penalize me, I recognize my guilt and I have totally completed the negotiated sentence,” Lehder wrote in the letter.
In the letter, which Lehder sent February 4, on the 23rd anniversary of his extradition, the former Medellin cartel leader alleged that American justice had not fulfilled a promise to allow Lehder to testify as a key witness in the case against former Panamanian dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega.
Lehder also asked the Colombian government to help his daughters obtain visas so that they can visit their father in prison. Lehder’s daughter Monica said last February that she and her sister have not seen their father since the U.S. denied the women visas seven years ago.
Lehder was a close associate of Medellin’s most infamous drug trafficker Pablo Escobar. In the 1980s Lehder was one of the richest men in the world. After his extradition, he was sentenced to 55 years in a U.S. prison and is scheduled for release in March 2023.