Costa Rica extradites guerrilla leader to Colombia
Source: Reuters
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica, Dec 22 (Reuters) - A Colombian rebel suspected of involvement in dozens of murders and running a drugs for arms operation has been extradited to Colombia from Costa Rica, a court spokeswoman in Costa Rica said on Friday. Hector Orlando Martinez, believed to be a leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, was turned over to Colombian authorities on Thursday, four months after his arrest in the Costa Rican port of Puntarenas. Court spokeswoman Maria Isabel Hernandez said Martinez was handed over on the Colombian island of San Andres, east of Costa Rica. Martinez, 38, is wanted by Interpol and Colombian authorities in connection with the killings of dozens of police and civilians in Colombia, including the massacre of 47 police in 1999. He is also suspected of involvement in a 2002 mortar attack on a church that killed 84 people including 46 children. It was one of the deadliest attacks in Colombia's four-decade old guerrilla war. Martinez had lived in the Pacific coast port of Puntarenas for several years and Interpol suspects him of running a FARC operation from there that used drugs as a currency to buy weapons. The Marxist FARC, branded a terrorist organization by the U.S. government, is Colombia's biggest guerrilla group. It says it is fighting for a socialist state that would close Colombia's huge wealth gap. But shootouts with far-right paramilitaries kill thousands each year as the groups battle for control of Colombia's lucrative cocaine trade.
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