Colombia seeks Israeli mercenary

[kiwi]

Colombia is to seek the extradition of an Israeli mercenary, convicted in absentia of training death squads, who has been arrested in Russia.

Yair Klein, a former Israeli colonel, was held at a Moscow airport on an international arrest warrant.

He was sentenced to 10 years for training drugs traffickers and right-wing paramilitaries in the 1980s.

Prosecutors say those trained went on to carry out some of the country's most notorious political assassinations.

"Colombia's government is going to make a formal petition to the Russian foreign ministry, so he is sent here to pay his sentence," Colombia's foreign minister Fernando Araujo told reporters.

The Russian authorities have refused to provide details about Klein's capture and have not commented on the extradition request.

Drug cartel

Klein was convicted of training a cadre of killers for the Medellin drug cartel.

They later became the nucleus of the brutal right-wing paramilitary army known as the United Self Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), says the BBC's Jeremy McDermott in Colombia.

The Colombian authorities say Klein was hired by the Medellin cartel of drug lord Pablo Escobar, which set up a training school for paramilitaries and assassins in Colombia.

Escobar was blamed for the deaths of thousands of people in his war against the state, including blowing up an airliner in 1989. He was finally tracked down and shot dead by police in Medellin in 1993.

The paramilitaries are thought to have murdered many thousands of people in their bloody rampage of the past 20 years, our correspondent says.

Klein was arrested and imprisoned in Sierra Leone in 1999 on charges of smuggling arms to the rebel group Revolutionary United Front.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6968143.stm

[Ultra Requete]

nterpol seeks 3 Israelis accused of training Colombian death squads

International arrest warrant issued for three Israelis accused of training private armies of Columbia drug cartels and right-wing death squads

Associated Press
Published:    04.03.07, 23:54 / Israel News

Interpol issued an international arrest warrant Tuesday for three Israelis accused of training private armies of Colombian drug cartels and right-wing death squads.

 Yair Klein, Melnik Ferri and Abraham Tzedaka were being sought on charges of criminal conspiracy and instruction in terrorism and face nearly 11 years in prison if convicted, a spokesman for Colombia's domestic intelligence agency said, speaking on the condition that he not be identified.

 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 $13,400 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. In an interview with Caracol television conducted in Israel and broadcast in March, Klein denied ever working with the cocaine cartels, but confirmed that he did instruct the far-right death squads in how to eliminate the leftist insurgency.

 'Not trained to kill'
He said he was originally hired - with the Colombian Ministry of Defense'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." Headed by Escobar, the Medellin cartel pioneered the use of unrestrained violence in its dealings with enemies and allies alike.

 As Escobar fought against the threat of extradition, he declared war on Colombia, bringing down air planes, blowing up police headquarters and offering his army of assassins a set rate for the killing of policemen.

 Escobar was finally shot down by police in his hometown of Medellin in 1993. Rodriguez Gacha was killed by police in 1989.

LOL! this guy looks like Nikita Chruschow former Gensek of SUKP; its looks like another scape goat to me; everyone uses mercs today Rebel groups, mafias, Global concerns; Govermnts; NGOs;  but from time to time someone must be prosecuted
to show the public opinion haw "abhorent" this buisness is for politicians.  

[Crusty]

Mercenary my aarse! He's just another terrorist cockroach who should be taken out with the rest of the vermin.

[sniper]

A circumsised Oliver North.....give em enough rope and they will do the job for you.

Just eliminate the phrase  'I don't recall that sir"

[kiwi]

The difference being at least Merc's had the idea to get paid first rather than wait of the 72 chicky babys in heaven.