Colombia has extradited one of the leftist rebels who held three American defense contractors hostage for years in secret jungle camps and is accused of exporting cocaine to the United States.
Gerardo Aguilar, alias Cesar, was captured last year during the stunning rescue of three American anti-drug contractors and French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, who had been held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc.
Colombia's Supreme Court authorized the extradition requested by a court in Washington based on accusations of cocaine trafficking. It denied the US request that Aguilar face kidnapping charges in the United States because that crime did not take place on US soil.
Aguilar was indicted on charges relating to the kidnapping of the American contractors who were taken hostage after their plane crashed in 2003 in Farc-occupied territory in the Colombian jungle.
A handcuffed and bespectacled Aguilar, wearing a military-style combat helmet and bullet-proof vest, boarded a US government plane in the late morning, headed for Washington.
Aguilar (50) is scheduled to be presented in federal court in Washington this morning, the US Justice Department said in a statement.
US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Lev Dassin said the extradition was a milestone in his office's fight against global nacroterrorism.
"The Farc's terrorist and cocaine-trafficking activities pose an extraordinarily grave threat to the people of Colombia and the United States," Mr Dassin said. "We are committed, together with Colombian authorities and United States law enforcement agencies, to attacking FARC's criminal leadership."
Aguilar was known in Colombia as one of the Farc's "jailers" for holding such high-profile hostages as the Americans and Ms Betancourt, who were all rescued in the same 2008 operation. He is also accused of managing a large part of the rebels' illegal drug trade.
On July 2 last year the Farc was duped into handing 15 kidnap victims over to soldiers masquerading as members of a leftist humanitarian group that had volunteered to transport the hostages by helicopter to a new location.
Aguilar boarded the helicopter after being convinced to turn over his gun. Once in the air, the once-feared guerrilla was pummeled and tied down, his bruised face displayed for television cameras when the rescue of the Americans, Ms Betancourt and 11 other hostages was announced.
The rescue increased public confidence in Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, whose father was killed in a botched Farc kidnapping two decades ago and who has vowed to crush the country's 45-year-old insurgency.
The president, whose high popularity is based on his US-backed crackdown on the Farc, may run for re-election in 2010 if his supporters succeed in changing the constitution to allow him to campaign for an unprecedented third term.
Reuters