Extradited Medellin crime lord Diego Fernando Murillo, a.k.a. “Don Berna,” asked President Gustavo Petro to allow him to take part in peacebuilding efforts in Colombia.
In a letter to the president, Berna stressed his “lived experiences” and “first-hand knowledge of the country’s urban and rural conflicts.”
The long-time boss of Medellin’s mafia played key roles in Colombia’s armed conflict between 1991 and 2008, when he was extradited to the United States.
Berna was one of the founders of “Los Pepes,” a death squad that helped police and American intelligence agencies to kill Pablo Escobar in 1993.
The group subsequently took over much of the cartel’s drug trafficking activities and formed paramilitary organization AUC, the most violent of illegal armed groups, in 1997.
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Berna helped the military to expel leftist militias from Medellin, consolidating his control over Medellin as the sole boss of “La Oficina.”
A 2022 ruling by the Medellin Superior Tribunal revealed that both Colombian and US authorities had been frustrating efforts to interrogate Berna about his alleged 445 crimes against humanity.
Former President Alvaro Uribe, who is now in court over his alleged ties to the AUC, extradited Berna without the necessary court approval in 2008.
The United States’ Federal Bureau of Prisons subsequently failed to facilitate hearings that would allow Berna to comply with his obligations to Colombian justice.
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The participation of Berna, who is serving a 31-year sentence, would mainly consist of his collaboration with justice about his ties to authorities in Bogota and Washington DC, and the business elite in the Antioquia province.
As part of his “Total Peace” initiative, Petro’s peace commissioner embarked on talks with Berna’s jailed former subordinates in an attempt to dismantle the organized crime group founded by their extradited boss.
