Manuel Bernal Parra, magistrate of the special system that tries former paramilitaries, called Justice and Peace, has ordered the release of one of the most emblematic figures of the Colombian criminal phenomenon. Salvatore Mancuso, former commander of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), had 57 preventive detentions against him in that system, all intramural, and was being held in La Picota prison in Bogotá. But Parra asked this Thursday to replace them with non-custodial measures. He does it because, as he explains, Mancuso has complied for several years with two mandatory Justice and Peace guidelines: providing the truth to his victims, and delivering goods to repair them.
“Thank you very much, your honor,” said the former commander upon hearing the decision in a virtual hearing. Mancuso will be able to leave prison but not the country, he will not be able to carry weapons, and he must appear before the Justice and Peace courts when he is required. He must also appear before the Agency for Reincorporation and Normalization, the institution that directs the resocialization processes of those who laid down their weapons.
Mancuso returned to the country at the end of February after almost 15 years in the United States, the country to which he was extradited in 2008 during the Government of former President Álvaro Uribe. Although the former commander had taken advantage of the special Justice and Peace system, in 2006, Uribe alleged that he continued committing crimes and that is why he should be extradited. The victims saw Uribe’s move as an effort to silence the former paramilitary’s truth. However, he continued to participate in real hearings and, from the United States, served several of his sentences in Colombia. He returned claiming that he had already served his mandatory jail time and should be released. Two and a half months after his landing, Parra told him that he can leave La Picota.
Mancuso’s legal path has not been easy to follow because his freedom, exceptionally in the Colombian justice system, has been in the hands of two special transitional justice courts. Shortly after his landing, a Justice and Peace judge in Barranquilla had immediately denied the request for freedom, recalling 33 security measures that Mancuso had against him in the department of Atlántico. He also did not allow him to be a peace manager, an offer that the government of President Gustavo Petro had made him. That decision was appealed by the former commander’s lawyers. A few days later, another transitional court, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), which judges former FARC guerrillas and members of the public force, announced that they should be the ones to evaluate Mancuso’s freedom—since the latter is appearing in court. truth about the relationship between the paramilitaries and the public force. Three weeks ago, the JEP had also denied him freedom.
But the appeal was pending in Justice and Peace. It is in response to her that, now, Judge Parra says that Mancuso can be released from prison. The exceptional legal ping-pong in which Mancuso’s freedom is, due to appearing before two transitional justice courts, puts him in an uncomfortable situation that in the end the Constitutional Court will have to resolve.
“When two or more authorities from different jurisdictions, without a common hierarchical superior, have a dispute regarding the jurisdiction to hear one or more matters, the Constitutional Court will be in charge of settling it,” said the JEP ruling.
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Mancuso himself knew that one of his big problems was going to be who ends up deciding on his legal situation, as he wrote in a letter before landing at the end of February. “Despite the gaps and risks that the fact of having been subject to two jurisdictions poses for my procedural guarantees and legal security (…) I believe that the transitional justice models that began to operate in Colombia after our demobilization (. ..) are true and legitimate for the definitive judicial closure of the internal armed conflict,” he said, committing to offer the truth of the war to the victims, both in the JEP and in Justice and Peace.
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