Colombian drug lord “El Tuso,” who had been released from a federal prison in the United States last week, on Tuesday was called to appear before a Colombian court to answer to charges of drug trafficking.
MORE: Ex-drug lord El Tuso released from US prison
According to the anti-narcotics unit of Colombia’s prosecutor general, El Tuso, the alias of Juan Carlos Sierra Ramirez, was responsible for shipping around seven shipments of drugs to various Central American countries.
The decision to take El Tuso to court was taken after Colombia’s Justice and Peace unit presented several testimonies which tied the drug trafficker to drug shipments seized by international authorites in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
In a hearing with Justice and Peace, El Tuso said he maintanied contacts with AUC leader Carlos Castaño and other alleged paramilitaries like Ramiro Vanoy, Nicolas Vergonzoli and Hernando Gomez Bustamante, in order to facilitate the drug trafficking routes.
El Tuso was one of 14 alleged leaders of the AUC who in May 2008 were extradited to the United States, without the necessary approval of the Supreme Court. The suprise action was condemned by the court, the Prosecutor General’s Office and representatives of the tens of thousands of victims of the paramilitary organization the AUC, who accused Uribe of trying to prevent the paramilitaries from revealing their ties to politicians and economic elites, commonly called “parapolitics.”
FACT SHEET: Parapolitics
Sources
- Fiscalía llamó a indagatoria a ‘El Tuso’ Sierra por narcotráfico (El Espectador)
