Published on elespectador.com on March 19, 2013
In the Senate, where this warning was made, it was denounced that many capos, after serving “ridiculous” sentences, have received visas from the United States.
The Senate is gearing up to conduct a profound debate regarding the situation of the extradition treaty between Colombia and the United States.
Amidst the continuous revelations from the media concerning the short sentences that many Colombian drug traffickers receive from the U.S. judicial system, Senator Juan Manuel Galan questioned the current situation.
“Extradition [as a judicial process] has become eroded and has lost meaning and worth…worth as a deterrent for organized crime and drug traffickers,” he claimed.
According to Senator Galan, extradition in Colombia has changed from being a dissuading factor to becoming an “attractive” one.
“There has arisen a whole cartel of intermediaries between drug traffickers and the American justice system to coordinate surrenders and cooperation revealing routes, so that sentences of 15 or 20 years wind up becoming on many occasions of even six months,” he insisted.
For Galan, that is “absolutely ridiculous and insulting” toward the victims of drug trafficking in Colombia.
“Here we make a great effort to invest a good amount of resources that might otherwise be destined to other social programs in the war on drugs, only to end up sending those capos to serve short sentences in the U.S.,” he remarked.
Furthermore, according to Galan, many drug traffickers currently hold visas to the United States, while many Colombians have been denied that same document.
“Many drug traffickers, after having served ridiculous sentences, end up with visas and all kinds of conveniences,” he added.
The idea is for the Minister of Justice, Ruth Stella Correa, and the justices of the Supreme Court, with prosecutor Eduardo Montealegre and Solicitor General Alejandro Ordonez, to explain “how they see the ‘evolution’ of the extradition of Colombians to the United States.”
The petition for the Government to respond to questioning regarding the extradition treaty was already made during the plenary session of the Senate.