Colombian rebel group FARC announced Tuesday Rodrigo Londoño Echeverry, aliases “Timoleon Jimenez” and “Timochenko,” as their new supreme leader, less than two weeks after the Colombian Army killed “Alfonso Cano.”
“We want to inform you that Comrade Timoleon Jimenez, with a unanimous vote by his companions in the secretariat, was designated on Nov. 5 as the new commander of the FARC,” said an official statement from ABP Noticias as the the FARC’s own website has not published the announcement.
Timochenko, 52, has been a member of the seven-member ruling secretariat since the early 1990s, and is reportedly one of the FARC’s hardliners. He is believed to operate in the Norte de Santander province on the border with Venezuela and has at least 117 outstanding warrants. The U.S. Department of State is currently offering a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to his arrest and/or conviction on the government website.
As a member of the FARC Secretariat and an adviser to the Magdalena Medio Block, Timochenko set organizational policies that were responsible for the manufacture and distribution of hundreds of tons of cocaine to the world. He is also responsible for murdering hundreds of people who interfered in the process, according to the same U.S. government website.
The last known public sighting of Timochenko was in Venezuela in mid-2008 when he was videotaped confirming the death of former commander “Manuel Marulanda,” while naming Cano as the new head, according to Colombian security agencies.
However, President Juan Manuel Santos announced last April that he may have returned to Colombia saying, “Hopefully he is in Colombia… Last we heard of Timochenko, he was on the Colombian side [of the border].”