Colombia kingpin Escobar's hitman freed from jail
Source: Reuters
Colombia kingpin Escobar's hitman freed from jail
2014-08-27 12:45
Bogota - One of Colombia's most feared drug cartel assassins walked free on Tuesday after serving 22 years in jail for scores of murders ordered by notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar during the cocaine trafficking heyday of the 1980s, police said.
Jhon Jairo Velasquez, known by his alias 'Popeye', was released early from the high security Combita prison in central Boyaca after completing about three fifths of his sentence and receiving a reduction for studying and good behaviour. He left the prison heavily guarded by state-provided protection.
Velasquez, aged 52, was Escobar's chief hit man during the bloodiest days of the infamous Medellin Cartel, which shipped billions of dollars of cocaine to the United States and Europe. The prolific assassin, who has admitted to killing hundreds of Escobar's enemies, was on the frontlines of grisly gangland battles for territory and trafficking routes. He was indirectly behind thousands of deaths by killers on Escobar's payroll.
One of Escobar's inner circle, Velasquez was allegedly involved in some of the most famous cartel-related crimes - including the 1989 assassination of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan and the bombing of an Avianca commercial flight later that same year that killed all 107 on board.
Read more: http://www.news24.com/World/News/Colombia-kingpin-Escobars-hitman-freed-from-jail-20140827
bloomington-lib
(946 posts)AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)He won't last long.
Judi Lynn
(160,211 posts)Colombia paroles druglords hitman ignoring protests
August 28, 2014
BOGOTA: A former hit man for Pablo Escobar, who confessed to hundreds of murders as head of the drug kingpins army of assassins, has been freed from a maximum security prison under heavy police guard.
John Jairo Velasquez, better known by his nickname Popeye, was parolled on Tuesday evening despite protests from the relatives of his many alleged victims.
He had spent 22 years behind bars for plotting the murder of a former presidential candidate, Luis Carlos Galan during the campaign for the 1990 presidential election.
In a string of interviews anticipating his early release, Velasquez figured that he had about an 80 per cent chance of being killed by former rivals after he was released.
With the threat of a revenge killing lurking, he said he was considering relocating abroad. He also wants to sell to Hollywood the rights to an autobiography he wrote about his life alongside Escobar.
More:
http://gulftoday.ae/portal/120941d6-bbff-4d08-8503-221f36dcf532.aspx
[center]
Pablo Escobar
John Jairo "Popeye" Velasquez
Pablo Escobar, first row,
and Colombian agents,
kneeling and standing. [/center]
daschess1987
(192 posts)or he'd never see the outside of prison.
Judi Lynn
(160,211 posts)Judi Lynn
(160,211 posts)Colombia frees Escobar hit man who killed hundreds
28 August 2014 07:43
Baku-APA. John Jairo Velasquez -- the top hit man for notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar in the '80s, known in Colombia as the "narcoterrorism era" -- is a free man for the first time in 22 years, APA reports quoting CNN.
The 52-year-old Velasquez, also known as "Popeye," was released Tuesday night from a maximum-security prison in the Colombian province of Boyaca, northeast of Bogota, the capital. He left the prison under heavy police protection.
Velasquez surrendered to authorities in 1992, telling a reporter at the time, "I don't owe anything to anybody. I haven't done anything wrong."
But in jailhouse interviews, he admitted several times to killing about 300 people, including soldiers, police officers, rival cartel members and civilians. He also confessed to masterminding the killings of more than 3,000 other people, most of them civilians.
Some of his victims died in car bombings in cities across Colombia including Bogota; Medellin, his cartel's home base; and Cali.
Velasquez was also responsible for a number of high-profile kidnappings, among them that of Attorney General Carlos Mauro Hoyos in January 1988. Velasquez confessed that he killed Hoyos in captivity.
More:
http://en.apa.az/news/215586
Judi Lynn
(160,211 posts)Pablo Escobar's Right-Hand Man Explains Why The Drug War Is Unwinnable
Michael B Kelley, provided by
| August 27, 2014
In a five-part series about lessons learned from the failed war on drugs, Jochen-Martin Gutsch and Juan Moreno of Der Spiegel explore possible solutions to a campaign that's had "devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world."
The person who helps them establish the problem is legendary druglord Pablo Escobar's former security chief, Jhon "Popeye" Velásquez, who currently resides in a Cómbita maximum-security prison outside of the Colombian capital of Bogotá.
Popeye helped Escobar industrialize cocaine production, seize control 80 percent of the global cocaine trade, and become one of the richest people on the planet by kidnapping, torturing, and murdering hundreds of people who obstructed the Medellín cartel's business.
When asked: "How can we stop people like you?" Popeye responds:
"People like me can't be stopped. It's a war. They lose men, and we lose men. They lose their scruples, and we never had any. In the end, you'll even blow up an aircraft because you believe the Colombian president is on board. I don't know what you have to do. Maybe sell cocaine in pharmacies. I've been in prison for 20 years, but you will never win this war when there is so much money to me made. Never."
More:
http://www.chron.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Pablo-Escobar-s-Right-Hand-Man-Explains-Why-The-5717249.php