Israel Thursday declined to give a date for their response to a Colombian extradition request for an Israeli mercenary.
Colombia requested the extradition of Yar Klein, a former colonel in the Israeli army on January 27, but Israel has failed to announce whether it will approve or deny the request.
Israeli Foreign Minister Igal Palmor said that his nation will “fully and seriously” consider the request and that it would “be treated and managed with the utmost seriousness as befits the request of a friend,” but failed to indicate when his government would formally respond.
Klein is sought by the Colombian government for allegedly training units of paramilitaries that later went on to kill 3,000 left-wing guerrillas as well as four political candidates. In 2001 Klein was convicted in his absence by a Colombian court for providing military training to paramilitaries and Medellin drug cartels. He was sentenced to 10 years and eight months in jail.
Klein was arrested in 2007 on an Interpol warrant in Moscow. He had previously been incarcerated for 16 months in Sierra Leone for selling arms, training Liberian rebels, and trafficking in diamonds.
Klein was released from Moscow after the European Court of Human Rights ruled that he would face a serious risk of mistreatment if he was detained in Colombia. Klein was sent to Israel where he currently resides.
Klein is accused of working for a number of drug cartel leaders, including Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha allias “the Mexican” and Medellin druglord Pablol Escobar.