One of Colombia’s most notorious warlords pleaded guilty on Tuesday to drug smuggling charges that could put him in a US prison for the next three decades.
Diego Murillo, formerly a top commander in the right-wing paramilitary group, United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, entered the surprise plea on Tuesday in federal court in New York City, just 35 days after arriving on US soil.
Speaking through an interpreter, he pleaded guilty to an indictment that accused him of conspiring to smuggle tons of cocaine into the US.
As a condition of Murillo’s extradition to the US, prosecutors had assured the Colombian government that they would not seek a life sentence; the plea agreement calls for him to serve between 27 and 33 years in prison.
Murillo’s lawyer, Paul Nalven, did not say why his client had chosen to plead guilty rather than fight the charges, but he noted that the sentence “could have been a lot worse” had he been convicted at trial. Other drug kingpins from Colombia have recently been sentenced to terms as long as 45 years.
The plea was a tremendous victory for a New York police task force that spent more than five years gathering evidence tying Murillo to narcotics smuggling.
Murillo, 47, said little during his court hearing, but acknowledged through an interpreter that he conspired with “military, political and anti-communist” forces to distribute cocaine in the US.
The warlord was one of 14 paramilitary leaders taken from Colombian jails and extradited to the US last month to face drug charges.
Human rights groups also blame Murillo for hundreds of murders in Colombia, some occurring while he was a top leader of the paramilitary group AUC, and some during a long career in organized crime that stretched back to the days of Pablo Escobar.
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