Extradition from Colombia to the United States—FARC

An enormous superseding indictment was unsealed in Washington D.C. yesterday, “charging 50 members of FARC’s [the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia] policymaking and operational leadership with importing more than $25 billion worth of cocaine into the United States and other countries.”^[1] Calling it a “narco terrorist group,” Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said that FARC “has controlled the production and distribution of massive amounts of cocaine that ends up in America’s communities.”^[2] Atty. Gen. Gonzales also said that it was the largest drug trafficking indictment ever filed in U.S. history,^[3] but there aren’t details into what that necessarily means; yesterday we mentioned Quirino Paulino’s case, which seems to have 60 individuals involved.

The indictment covers the individuals who are allegedly responsible “for overseeing the production of more than 60 percent of the cocaine imported into the United States,” and three of FARC’s leaders are currently in custody in Colombia; the US has already begun the process of requesting their extradition.^[4] The DOJ has also initiated a rewards program, offering rewards of up to $5 million each for information leading to the arrest or conviction of seven “secretariat leaders” of FARC; a reward of up to $2.5 million is available for the arrest or conviction of another 17 individuals.^[5]

Some of the individuals named in the indictment, which supersedes an indictment from 2002 or 2003, are already in US custody,^[6] and Colombia has been quite cooperative with the United States in extraditing individuals to face drug trafficking charges in the US. For example, in September, we mentioned that the pace of extradition has been so swift in recent years, that the DEA started mass-extradition flights to save time and money.

The obstacle that faces the United States in securing the extradition of these individuals is the discrepancy in jail sentences in the United States versus the jail sentences in Colombia, which has been a source of contention for many years. The United States will not be able to seek the death penalty for any of the defendants because the extradition treaty between the US and Colombia allows either country to refuse extradition for death offenses unless the requesting state “furnishes such assurances as the requested state considers that the death penalty shall not be imposed, or if imposed, shall not be executed.”^[7] Colombia will require those assurances because it does not extradite individuals who will be put to death. Furthermore, the United States will face issues based on principles of international comity if it seeks to imprison the defendant for life. Colombia’s maximum penalty for any crime is 40 years in prison, and while there is nothing in the treaty that prevents the US from imposing life in prison as a punishment, the issue has caused problems between the two countries in the past.^[8]

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[1] US DOJ, The U.S. Department of Justice Announces Indictments of FARC Drug Cartel, Mar. 22, 2006.
[2] Id.
[3] Id.
[4] Id.
[5] Id.
[6] Id.
[7] Extradition Treaty, Sep. 14, 1979, U.S.-Colom., art. 7, S. Treaty Doc. No. 97-8 (1976).
[8] See our August 25, 2005 posting on this issue.