Ex Paramilitary Leader Salvatore Mancuso Set Free

Ex-paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso, imprisoned for several crimes, was released on Thursday, May 9, following an order from the Peace and Justice Chamber of the Superior Tribunal of Bogota. The order lifted 57 warrants against him.

Magistrate Jose Manuel Bernal Parra made the decision, replacing Mancuso’s imprisonment with a non-incarcerating measure. The former commander of the paramilitary group United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) was detained in La Picota, a maximum-security facility in Bogota.

The execution of this order occurred because, according to Bernal Parra, there have been no breaches of the law associated with the document issued by the Justice and Peace Chamber and its subsequent notification to the National Institute of Penitentiary and Prison Institutions (INPEC). Meanwhile, other authorities are awaiting the possibility of additional arrest warrants.

Salvatore Mancuso returned to Colombia on February 27 after being deported from the United States, where he served a lengthy prison sentence. His deportation qualified him to become a “peace manager” under the Petro administration, a role yet to be regulated or confirmed.

During the hearing on Thursday, the magistrate stated, “Mancuso will have to appear whenever required by the Justice and Peace prosecutors and the courts, as well as before various authorities that may require his presence to continue with the essence of this transitional process.”

What is next for Salvatore Mancuso?

Salvatore Mancuso has been previously admitted into the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), a transitional justice mechanism created to investigate belligerents of the Colombian armed conflict. The purpose of this decision is for Mancuso to disclose all he knows about the crimes committed during the armed conflict between 1989 and 2004.

However, in the JEP, there are no precautionary measures against him, and any proceedings he is involved in with this court must wait until the Constitutional Court resolves a conflict of competencies raised by the Justice and Peace system against the JEP, as both entities claim jurisdiction over his case.

In Colombia, Mancuso has three convictions against him. On March 4, a Justice and Peace sentence execution judge granted him probation for four years. In her decision, the judge noted that Mancuso has an accumulated sentence of 480 months, which is 40 years, although his alternative sentence under the Justice and Peace Law is eight years.