FARC leader “Jesus Santrich” was seriously injured inside La Picota on Friday, his attorney told press outside the prison from where he was ordered to be released.
“Comrade Jesus Santrich, who … today would have been released is injured and bleeding and fighting for his life in the high security ward,” FARC spokesman Franciso Toloza said.
According to the visibly upset former rebel, “we have not been able to clarify” how the FARC leader was injured.
The director of prison authority INPEC, General William Ruiz, told press that Santrich “self-inflicted wounds on his wrists.”
Ruiz said that the FARC leader had already received medical attention “and is in stable condition.”
“I don’t know if he tried to commit suicide or if somebody hurt him. He is inside his isolation cell,” attorney Gustavo Gallardo was quoted as saying by newspaper El Tiempo.
Another attorney of Santrich, Eduardo Matias, reportedly said that he had received information that authorities tried to extradite the FARC leader to the United States against the order of the the country’s war crimes tribunal.
According to newspaper El Espectador, rumors have been circulating that President Ivan Duque had decreed an emergency that would allow him to extradite Santrich, whose real name is Seuxis Hernandez, without warrant.
Government sources denied the rumors that the Duque administration would extradite the FARC leader against the court orders.
As the crisis at La Picota unfolded, a Bogota court ordered both criminal and disciplinary investigations against INPEC for not having released Santrich as ordered by the war crimes tribunal on Wednesday, according to newspaper El Tiempo.
The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) ordered the immediate release of the FARC’s former ideologue on Wednesday after rejecting the US extradition request on a drug charge that was not substantiated by evidence, according to the JEP.
In the same ruling that ordered the FARC’s leader release the transitional court ordered the investigation of the Prosecutor General’s Office and the DEA for “serious irregularities” that led to the extradition request and Santrich’ request in April last year.