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Edited on Mon Mar-10-08 10:01 AM by Judi Lynn
Here's info. on a man who trained the death squads under the control of the man mentioned in the original post, Carlos Castaño, whose brother had him killed a couple of years ago, along with some of his body guards. 
Carlos Castano
You may be interested in studying the emotional freakishness in Carlos Castano
in this clip. No doubt whatsoever he was truly diseased inwardly. Mr. Chainsaw
Massacres.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vd8xUJ4m4Ow~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The name of Yair Klein, Israeli merchant of death and mayhem came up last year, when he was on the run somewhere in Russia. Had never heard of him before, but that was due to my ignorance. He is very active in this subhuman level of human activity:
June 01, 2000
Who Is Israel’s Yair Klein and What Was He Doing in Colombia and Sierra Leone?
Last weekend, Colombian intelligence agents arrested two Israelis and a Colombian suspected of being part of an arms-smuggling network attempting to deliver more than 50,000 guns to guerrillas. Colombian officials are investigating whether the detained Israelis are linked to Yair Klein, an Israeli mercenary accused by Colombian authorities of training right-wing paramilitaries and drug-traffickers in the late 1980s and 1990s.
And it is this man Yair Klein that we are going to take a close look at today. It’s the story of a leading mercenary but also of the governments and shadowy forces he has worked with.
In late April, Yair Klein was released from a Sierra Leone prison where he spent 16 months on charges that he was smuggling arms to rebels from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF).
Klein is a former lieutenant colonel in the Israeli Army. In the 1980s he established a paramilitary mercenary company called Spearhead Ltd. Through this company, Klein began providing arms and training to forces in South America.
In 1989, Klein, along with several other former Israeli officers, was charged by authorities in Colombia of providing paramilitary training and arms to drug lords running international cocaine cartels. He is also accused of training Mafia assassins whose targets have included Colombian politicians. Klein is also suspected of involvement in the explosion of a Colombian airliner in November 1989.
In 1991, Klein was convicted by an Israeli court of illegally exporting military arms and information to a Colombian group. He was fined $13,400. He has denied all charges.
In 1998, Klein was officially indicted in Colombia on charges of training paramilitary units in terror tactics in the late 1980s. He was allegedly one of four Israelis hired by the late drug trafficker Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, one of the Medellin cartel’s most violent bosses.
The evidence against him includes a training video that he used to instruct death squads in Colombia. The main leaders in the infamous Carlos Castano’s paramilitary groups were trained by Yair Klein.
Massacres, assassinations of politicians and other terror tactics now used by paramilitaries in Colombia were part of the instruction that Yair Klein gave in his training camps.
Guests: - Andrew Cockburn, a filmmaker and journalist. Among his works is a Front Line documentary “Israel: The Covert Connection.” His latest book he wrote with his brother Independent reporter Patrick Cockburn called ??Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein. He also did the documentary on Iraq called “The War We Left Behind.”
- Peter Hirshberg, a reporter for The Jerusalem Report Magazine who has covered Israeli mercenary firms.
- Jaome Vidal, with Coardinaccion Colombia Europa, a human rights group in Bogota.
- Maria Jimena Duzan, columnist for Bogota’s daily newspaper El Espectador and author of the book ??Death Beat, an account of the Colombian press’ struggle against the drug trade. El Espectador was bombed in the early 90’s by the Medellin Cartel for its coverage of the drug trade (half the building was destroyed). Also, the publisher/owner was killed by the Medellin Cartel.
http://www.democracynow.org/2000/6/1/who_is_israels_yair_klein_and(Interview transcript follows) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yair Klein is “wanted” in 186 countries
5 April 2007 ·
Well, it finally happened. Interpol has issued arrest warrants against three Israeli mercenaries for training death squads for the Medellin Cartel and the paramilitaries. Though a Manizales court sentenced them to jail, they were never captured.
AP says:Yair Klein, Melnik Ferri and Tzedaka Abraham were being sought on charges of criminal conspiracy and instruction in terrorism and face nearly 11 years in prison if convicted, said Oscar Galvis, spokesman for Colombia’s domestic intelligence agency.
The men are accused of helping set up training camps to teach private armies working for drug lords Pablo Escobar and Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha about explosives, car bombs and high-profile killings. The armies later morphed into Colombia’s right-wing death squads.
Klein, a former lieutenant colonel in the Israeli army, appeared in a 1998 video used to train far-right squads. In 1991, he was convicted and fined US$13,400 (€10,030) by an Israeli court for selling arms to Colombia’s illegal groups.
Klein also spent 16 months in a Sierra Leon prison for his role in a guns for blood diamonds deal.
He said he was originally hired — with the Colombian Ministry of Defence’s blessing — to organize security for the banana industry in the northern region of Uraba.
Many of his students went on to carry out some of Colombia’s most brutal massacres.
Klein said, however, that “they were not trained to kill, only trained to defend themselves.”
More: http://colombiaherald.wordpress.com/2007/04/05/yair-klein-is-wanted-in-186-countries/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Colombia, Israel and rogue mercenaries
Outside assistance with Colombian 'counterinsurgency' efforts in the form of Israeli 'expertise' has created dangerous rogue mercenaries and prolonged a bloody conflict.
By John C K Daly for ISN Security Watch (03/09/07)
Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos has acknowledged that Bogota had quietly hired a group of former Israeli military officers to advise local defense officials on their counter-insurgency tactics against leftist Fuerza Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) guerrillas, the Colombian daily Semana newspaper reported on 10 August.
FARC - founded in 1964 and the Western hemisphere's longest-running guerrilla movement - countered that Israeli mercenary commandos were actually involved in combat against their insurgents in Colombia's jungles.
The Israeli advisors - reportedly consisting of three senior generals, a lower ranking officer, an unnamed Argentinean officer and three translators - were hired under a reported US$10 million contract by the Colombian Defense Ministry to advise on how to improve the army's intelligence gathering capabilities. Santos reportedly approached former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami last year about the deal.
The Israeli group operates from Tolemaida in Cundinamarca Department, 240 kilometers from the capital Bogota, where the Colombian army runs its "Lancero" counterinsurgency training course, with Colombian army instructors being assisted by US military personnel.
The Israeli forces specialize in debriefing former guerrillas; previously, the interrogations were handled by civil servants without specialized knowledge, while the Israelis provide specialized interrogation techniques to improve the flow of intelligence from the de-briefings.
The program has its critics, many of whom wonder why the government did not resort to private groups or the US or the UK, which already cooperate with Bogota on intelligence matters. The government's explanation is that the Israeli mission is highly specialized.
However, Colombian security expert Laude Fernandez is not convinced. "It would have had been better to rely on the British, who have a good system of intelligence and a better standard in human rights," Fernandez told the Colombian daily Semana on 4 August. http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?id=18064~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yair KleinReport Says Mercenaries Aided Colombian Cartels
By JEFF GERTH, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: February 28, 1991
Groups of British and Israeli mercenaries provided paramilitary assistance to Colombian drug-trafficking organizations in 1988 and 1989, according to a Senate staff study and testimony presented today to a Senate panel.
The staff of the panel, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, has also found that a large shipment of Israeli arms that wound up with Colombian traffickers in 1989 was arranged and financed with the help of three former Israeli military officials who laundered payments for the weapons through a Panamanian bank in 1989.
The two cases were discussed today by the subcommittee as part of its longstanding effort to examine ties between illegal arms sales, mercenaries and drug cartels.
Subcommittee members said the examples cited today showed that more government vigilance and cooperation at home and abroad were needed to stop trafficking in arms and paramilitary expertise.
"The international arms market for conventional weaponry too often resembles a multinational bazaar," said Senator William V. Roth Jr. ofDelaware, the ranking Republican on the panel, who called for better efforts to limit global arms trafficking.
The hearing today included testimony about a group of British mercenaries who in 1988 provided training for private armies controlled by Jose Rodriguez Gacha, a drug-trafficking leader who was killed in late 1989 by the Colombian police.
David Tomkins, identified by the subcommittee as a leader of the mercenary group, told the panel that he and his associates worked closely with some senior Colombian military officials in the effort, which was not approved by the Colombian Government.Mr. Tomkins said the Colombian military officials forged a financial and political alliance with the drug traffickers in order to combat leftist insurgents. Mr. Tomkins justified his association with the notorious drug gangs by citing the need to fight the insurgents.
Mr. Tomkins, described by the subcommittee staff as a safecracker and explosive expert turned mercenary, told the senators that he had worked previously in Angola, Rhodesia and Afghanistan before going to Colombia, where he was paid $2,000 a week for his services.
A subcommittee staff aide told the panel that the training offered to drug dealers by the British and Israeli groups included terrorist tactics, like detonating car bombs.
Mr. Tomkins said one arms shipment he helped arrange for the Colombian traffickers eventually grew to more than 50 tons.
The Israeli group that provided paramilitary training for Colombian trafficking forces was headed by Yair G. Klein, who retired in 1981 as an Israeli military officer and set up a security firm called Spearhead, according to a report by the subcommittee's minority staff. That report is scheduled to be discussed at a hearing Thursday.
Mr. Klein has said he thought he was helping Colombian ranchers defend themselves, but Senator Roth said that evidence and testimony developed by the subcommittee made such explanations "not credible."
Mr. Klein declined to speak with a reporter today.
Mr. Klein's involvement in a 1989 shipment of Israeli arms, ostensibly intended for Antigua but which wound upon Mr. Rodriguez Gacha's ranch, has been investigated by the subcommittee and a judicial panel in Antigua.
The subcommittee, after gaining access to bank records, found that "the money for both the down payment and the final payment for these weapons originated or passed through Klein's Spearhead account in the Banco-Aleman Danemeno in Panama City," the minority staff study said.
The staff study cited circumstantial evidence that some of the funds used by Mr. Klein to buy the weapons ultimately originated in Colombia, but it couldn't fully trace the flow of money through Panama due to "obfuscation and delay" by Panamanian officials.
Ana Lisa Mir, a spokeswoman at the Panamanian Embassy in Washington, declined to comment on the staff report. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE7D9133CF93BA15751C0A967958260&scp=2&sq=yair+klein&st=nyt |
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