Former Colombian paramilitary leader “El Aleman” on Monday was sentenced to twenty years years in prison over the 2002 forced disappearance and homicide of a farmer.
Freddy Rendon Herrera, the former commander of the officially demobilized Elmer Cardenas Bloc, was sentenced for the dissapearance and killing of a farmer in Colombia’s northwestern Antioquia department that took place June 2002. The former second in command, Elkin Jorge Castañeda a.k.a. “Hermogenes Maza,” was also sentenced for the crime.
PROFILE: AUC
The victim, Marco Aurelio Manco, was killed in the Dabeiba municipality after the warlord suspected the victim to have collaborated with leftist guerrillas. The victim’s body was thrown into the river where it turned up a week later. His family was forced to flea their home after the assassination.
Both El Aleman and Maza accepted a plea bargain where they pled guilty to crimes of murder of protected persons, displacement of people, and kidnapping.
Herrera is currently in a Colombian jail on other murder charges as well as kidnapping. While Colombian authorities are investigating the former AUC commander for hundreds of human rights violations, U.S. authorities have requested his extradition to face drug trafficking charges.
The Elmer Cardenas paramilitary group was part of paramilitary umbrella organization AUC until its demobilization in 2006. El Aleman’s brother, Daniel Rendon alias “Don Mario,” inherited most of the drug routes managed by the Elmer Cardenas Bloc and converted the officially demobilized organization into the still active “Los Urabeños.”
PROFILE: Los Urabeños
Sources
- Condenan a 20 anos de prision a alias ‘El Aleman’ por homicidio (CM&la noticia)
- Condenan a 20 anos a alias “el Aleman” por homicidio en Dabeiba (El Colombiano)
