AP, BOGOTA
The man who directed hit teams for drug kingpin Pablo Escobar fingered a disgraced politician on Friday as being behind the 1989 assassination of leading presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan.
Alberto Santofimio Botero, a former senator and justice minister, was arrested Thursday for the killing of Galan -- a case that rocked Colombia and deprived the nation of a crusader against drug traffickers and corruption.
John Jairo Velasquez, who led Escobar's army of assassins, said in a telephone interview from prison with RCN TV that he was present at a meeting with Escobar and Santofimio when the politician recommended Galan be killed.
"Alberto Santofimio Botero had the idea of killing Luis Carlos Galan," Velasquez said. "Alberto Santofimio recommended that he be killed because the man, with the weapons of the state, would go after Pablo Escobar."
In 1989, Santofimio was running for the Liberal Party nomination for the 1990 presidential elections. Galan was a rival candidate, charismatic and likened to John F. Kennedy. Velasquez said Santofimio showed no hesitation when he told Escobar that Galan be killed.
"He was 100 percent calm ... he was removing a political enemy from his path," Velasquez said.
For Escobar, the assassination of Galan meant he would be eliminating a candidate who would likely extradite drug traffickers to the US for trial. The Medellin cocaine cartel, which Escobar headed, fought a bloody war during the 1980s to pressure the government to bar extraditions. Cartel assassins killed judges, an attorney general, Cabinet ministers, journalists and police. Hundreds more Colombians died in cartel bomb attacks in Bogota in Medellin.
Galan, who was shot dead while campaigning south of Bogota, was so far ahead in the polls for the 1990 presidential elections he was virtually assured of victory. His campaign manager, Cesar Gaviria, ran in his place after the attack, and was elected president. Immediately after Galan's assassination, then President Virgilio Barco retaliated by reinstating extraditions.
Santofimio, a former justice minister, was flown to Bogota on Friday aboard a police plane from a town in western Colombia where he was arrested. Authorities first tried to bring him to the capital on a commercial flight, but passengers rebelled, saying they did not want to travel with the disgraced politician.
Santofimio, 61, faces 40 years in prison if found guilty in Galan's murder. Santofimio was long known as the "political godfather" of Escobar, who was shot dead by police in 1993. In 1995, Santofimio was arrested for taking money from drug traffickers.
While several members of the hit team that killed Galan were arrested within days of the assassination, for more than 15 years Colombians have wondered who was behind the killing. Rumors swirled that politicians and security forces were involved.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
RSS