Colombian President Seeks to Halt Narcotics Arrests by US

(Patria) - The Colombian president is seeking to suspend arrest warrants for some of the country's biggest criminal suspects, including at least one person wanted in the US
for drug trafficking charges, as part of an ambitious plan to dismantle armed groups that have long dominated rural areas, AP reports.

The request to suspend arrest warrants for eight members of the so-called Gulf Clan was made by President Gustavo Petro's peace commissioner in a Jan. 11 letter to Colombia's chief prosecutor.
Among those on the list is Jobanis Villadiego, also known by his alias “The Bad Boy,” who was indicted in federal court in Brooklyn in 2015 along with Dairo Antonio Usuga, then the leader of the Gulf Clan and at the time Colombia's most wanted fugitive.

A copy of the letter was given to The Associated Press by a person close to U.S. law enforcement who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters at the heart of more than two decades of U.S.-Colombia cooperation in the war on drugs.

Colombia's highest law enforcement body on Friday said there was no legal basis for Petro's request. In a seven-page rebuttal shared with the media, the prosecutor general's office said such requests could only be made against members of politically motivated armed groups, while the Gulf Clan, which arose from the ashes of Colombia's right-wing paramilitary movement, was a purely criminal enterprise.

The Gulf Clan is accused of being Colombia's largest drug-trafficking organization, responsible for sending as much as 20 metric tons of cocaine each month to the U.S. and Europe.

Former conservative President Ivan Duque last year extradited Usuga to the U.S., calling him “the most dangerous drug trafficker in the world” and comparing him to Pablo Escobar, who terrorized much of Colombia before his death in the 1990s. Upon arriving in the U.S., Usuga pleaded not guilty and is currently awaiting trial.

Petro has taken a different approach than his predecessor. Since his historic election last year, the former leftist guerrilla has been pushing a plan for “total peace” that would involve negotiating not only with the country's last major rebel group, the National Liberation Army, but also with armed gangs like the Gulf Clan that continue to dominate and strengthen in Colombia's long-neglected countryside.

He has also proposed protection from extradition for those willing to lay down their arms and renounce criminal activities, a move that will test a long-standing law enforcement alliance with Washington. Under Duque, Colombia extradited more than 500 people to the U.S. Villadiego is wanted in the U.S. on multiple drug trafficking charges and in Colombia faces additional accusations of homicide and the forced recruitment of minors to commit crimes. Like his former boss Usuga, he was a member of the right-wing United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, which renounced violence as part of a 2004 peace agreement. But he later returned to crime as one of Usuga's top soldiers in the Gulf Clan, AP writes.