MOSCOW, June 5 (Reuters) - Colombia attacked as insulting and flippant on Thursday a decision by the European Court of Human Rights to block the extradition of an Israeli ex-army officer convicted of training illegal paramilitaries.

The Strasbourg-based European Court ordered Russia to halt the extradition of Yair Klein while it considered arguments by his defence lawyers that his life would be in danger if he were sent to a Colombian prison.

"We think the European Court's decision is flippant," Colombian Vice-President Francisco Santos told Reuters in an interview on Thursday during a visit to Moscow.

Klein was convicted in absentia in Colombia of training paramilitaries and sentenced to 10 years. Some went on to become feared killers who murdered judges, politicians and ordinary people while in the pay of drug lords and paramilitary bosses.

"Given the suffering of many Colombian judges because of this man and the people he trained, what the European Court has issued is an affront to Colombian justice," Santos told Reuters.

Klein was arrested in Russia last year and a Moscow court approved his extradition to serve his sentence in Bogota.

Santos said he hoped the Strasbourg court would quickly see that guarantees for Klein's safety did exist in Colombia and that he "ended up serving in jail the time for which he was sentenced by Colombian justice."

Klein has admitted training paramilitaries but said this was not illegal because the Colombian military knew about his activities.

Colombia's paramilitary movement began in the 1980s when wealthy landowners banded together for protection against kidnapping and extortion by leftist guerrillas.

But the militias soon turned to drug trafficking and kidnapping as they snatched land and killed peasants and some worked in the private armies of powerful drug lords. (Writing by Michael Stott)

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