Salvatore Mancuso, the former paramilitary commander who returned to Colombia two weeks ago after spending 15 years in a North American prison, hoped to now live in his country under parole. He argued that, after serving his sentence for drug trafficking and, at the same time, three convictions from the special jurisdiction of Justice and Peace for the crimes he committed as a paramilitary leader, the Colombian justice system could release him while the legal processes that involved him were resolved. has open. The designation of him as peace manager, made by the Government to serve as a mediator with groups seeking to negotiate with the State, served as additional legal support. But it won't be like that. A Justice and Peace judge from Barranquilla denied his request for freedom this Wednesday, recalling the 33 security measures that he has against him in the department of Atlántico. Mancuso will continue in La Picota prison in Bogotá, where he has been since he landed in the country.
Mancuso was not the only one who wanted his freedom. The Presidency, by appointing him as peace manager in 2023, requested the same. It makes sense, since it is a figure created for those who can serve as intermediaries between the Government of Gustavo Petro and the illegal groups with which there are rapprochements or peace dialogues. That appointment was the former commander's ace for justice to grant his request. Judge Carlos Andrés Pérez, however, said that the presidential resolution appointing him is unconstitutional. “It has serious defects that make it incompatible with the Political Constitution by seeking an open and unlimited release for a postulate of the benefits of the Justice and Peace Law and for whom, in this court alone, responsibilities have been attributed for 34,000 crimes of against humanity and war,” said the judge.
The criminal cases against Salvatore Mancuso are in different jurisdictions, which makes it difficult to predict his judicial future. Since 2006 he has been under Justice and Peace, the jurisdiction that investigates former paramilitaries after a peace process with the Uribe Government. There, he continues to be investigated for those 34,000 crimes. On the other hand, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace or JEP, the jurisdiction agreed with the extinct FARC that has investigated the public force and the guerrilla since 2018, decided to welcome Mancuso last year for having acted as a “hinge” with the forces. soldiers who committed crimes. This Wednesday's decision shows that it will not be so easy for the former commander, nor for justice, to have him in these two complex transitional justice processes and, at the same time, serve as part of the ambitious total peace policy of Gustavo's Government. Petro.
The Clan del Golfo, the largest criminal group heir to the paramilitaries, recently expressed that it does not see in Mancuso a peace manager in the face of a possible negotiation with the Government. Another smaller criminal group, the Conquering Self-Defense Forces of the Sierra Nevada, announced the opposite: they do want him as a mediator. But the Barranquilla judge argues that there is a problem in understanding Mancuso as a manager in processes with groups of which he is not a part. He remembers that if he had authority among them, it would be a way of violating his commitment to peace, or at least to Justice and Peace.
“It is inconsistent that the accused has insisted that demobilization constituted the end of his paramilitary leadership, and that today it is insinuated or suggested between the lines that he still has supremacy or ascendancy over emerging criminal structures,” Judge Perez said. There is a contradiction to be resolved, he insisted.
The decision is a stone in the way of Mancuso and the Government, and good news for Uribismo. The former paramilitary commander returned to the country expressing his commitment to President Petro's total peace, while the person who has most criticized Mancuso's possible release and his role as peace manager is former President Álvaro Uribe. The latter has suggested that the former paramilitary commander is not only lying against him (by accusing him of being an ally of paramilitarism), but that he could put his life at risk. Mancuso's lawyers will appeal the decision made this Wednesday in Barranquilla. Meanwhile, neither Uribism can say that Petro left Mancuso free, nor can Petrism count on Mancuso as manager of Total Peace.
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