Colombian blocks US extradition

Paramilitaries have disarming under a peace process with the government

A Colombian court has temporarily blocked the extradition to the US of a former paramilitary leader.

Carlos Mario Jimenez, also known as Macaco, is wanted by the US on charges of drug trafficking, money laundering and financing terrorist groups.

The court is blocking the extradition while it decides whether he should finish his sentence in Colombia.

The government stripped Jimenez of preferential prison treatment last year, accusing him of drug trafficking.

Authorities said Jimenez violated a peace agreement by continuing to organise cocaine shipments and run a criminal empire from prison.

Last August, he was transferred to Colombia's most secure prison, Combita, to be tried as an ordinary criminal.

Atrocities

The US has named Jimenez as narcotics trafficker, frozen any assets he has in the US and forbidden American citizens from doing business with him.

If extradited, he would be the highest-ranking Colombian right-wing paramilitary leader sent to the US to face charges.

He is the first jailed warlord to lose benefits agreed under a 2003 peace deal which led paramilitary leaders to surrender and demobilise 31,000 of their men in exchange for reduced jail terms and extradition protection.

The paramilitaries were created to combat rebel armies but evolved into drug-trafficking cartels accused of committing some of the country's worst atrocities.

Jimenez commanded what is thought to be Colombia's largest paramilitary group, the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC).