Colombia's ambassador to Washington DC and his growing terrorism support problem

[Judi Lynn]

by Adriaan Alsema September 1, 2020

The legal problems of Colombia’s ambassador to Washington DC got a lot worse after the US decided to deport former paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso to the South American country.

Ambassador Francisco Santos asked the prosecution to open a criminal investigation against him in April 2007 after Mancuso told prosecutors that the then-vice-president had proposed to form a paramilitary death squad in the capital on two occasions in 1997 when the dynasty politician was editor-in-chief of Colombia’s largest newspaper, El Tiempo.

Multiple former paramilitary commanders confirmed that late AUC founder Carlos Castaño in 2000 ordered the formation of the “Bloque Capital” at the request of Santos, whose newspaper began promoting the AUC after Santos allegedly invited Mancuso to El Tiempo’s headquarters in Bogota to promote the paramilitaries’ in a meeting with the newspapers’ journalists and columnists.

Santos praised the model that we presented to him, of how we functioned in Córdoba, and he told us… that one day the self-defense groups would be able to replicate that model in Bogota, since it was seen with concern in the capital’s circles that the guerrillas were advancing as they were after the Colombian capital.

Salvatore Mancuso
More:
https://colombiareports.com/colombias-ambassador-to-washington-dc-and-his-growing-terrorism-support-problem/