A US court has sentenced the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group and several of its leaders to pay $36 million for the more than six-year kidnapping of Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, according to prosecutors.
The sentence, handed down on the 4th by Judge Matthew Bran, of the federal court of Pennsylvania and made public this Thursday (13th) through a statement from the defense, indicates that the FARC must pay US$ 12 million in compensation for damages to the Betancourt’s son Lawrence Delloye, who filed the suit in June 2018 and who was a teenager when his mother was kidnapped.
The attorney’s fees are added to that $12 million, bringing the total to more than $36 million, said the law firm Scarinci Hollenbeck, in charge of the indictment.
Delloye argued in his complaint that the FARC and its leaders violated the Anti-Terrorism Act and that his mother’s kidnapping caused him significant emotional distress.
“While no amount of money can replace the time Lawrence Delloye lost without his mother or heal the trauma suffered at the hands of the FARC, we are proud to have been able to achieve some form of justice,” said attorney Robert Levy.
The case was brought to the US Court because Delloye is an American citizen, born in San Bernardino, California, in 1988.
“The FARC and its members caused the plaintiff to suffer damages associated with the separation from his mother, and to suffer emotional distress from not knowing whether his mother was alive or dead, or if he would ever be reunited with her,” Delloye’s defense alleged. in the process.
In his sentence, the judge notes that of the 15 FARC leaders accused, only one, Juan José Martínez Vega, has responded to the charges, while the others have not appeared in court for the past three and a half years.
Ingrid Betancourt, now 61, was kidnapped in February 2002 during a visit as part of her presidential campaign to an area of southern Colombia controlled by the FARC.
In July 2008, she was rescued, along with 14 other FARC hostages, by Colombian soldiers posing as workers for an international humanitarian organization.
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