Bogotá, Colombia–Colombia said Wednesday it would ask the United States for the extradition of Salvatore Mancuso, a former leader of a feared paramilitary group whom President Gustavo Petro had earmarked to work in his government.
Mancuso, 58, has been serving a sentence in a US prison since 2008 for conspiracy to traffic large amounts of cocaine.
He was unexpectedly extradited to the United States that year by former rightwing president Alvaro Uribe despite an agreement that saw Mancuso's United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) lay down arms in 2006, confess to crimes and agree to compensate victims.
Under the agreement, there would be a maximum eight-year prison sentence, in Colombia, for bosses of rightwing paramilitary groups accused of human rights abuses in a bloody war against leftist guerrillas.
On Sunday, Petro announced he had chosen Mancuso to serve in the office of Colombia's High Commissioner for Peace, a government body that holds dialogue with armed groups such as the ELN guerrilla force and dissidents of the disarmed FARC.
On Wednesday, the office said the government would activate "the diplomatic mechanisms necessary for an extradition request for Salvatore Mancuso to Colombia."
Petro, who came to office last year promising to negotiate with all armed groups in a quest for "total peace," has not specified what role Mancuso would play, or whether he would be remunerated.
The president's choice has been criticized by the opposition, while victims of the AUC hope Mancuso's return would help in finding the bodies of hundreds of people killed in Colombia's decades-long conflict which are still unaccounted for.
From prison, Mancuso has threatened to expose ties between the paramilitary group, politicians and businessmen.