Colombia drug kingpin pleads guilty in US

[Judi Lynn]

Source: REUTERS

Latest Update: Saturday, 18 October, 2008, 11:25 PM Doha Time
Colombia drug kingpin pleads guilty in US

WASHINGTON: A Colombian drug kingpin admitted leading a cartel that sent more than $10bn worth of cocaine to the US and pleaded guilty on Friday to US racketeering charges, the Justice Department said.

Luis Hernando Gomez-Bustamante, also known as “Rasguno,” pleaded guilty in Washington, DC, federal court to being a leader of the Norte Valle cartel. Since 1990, the group has exported more than 500,000kg (1.1mn lb) of cocaine, worth more than $10bn, from Colombia to Mexico and ultimately to the US, the department said.

It said the cartel engaged in murder, drug smuggling, money laundering and bribery, and relied on the paramilitary organisation Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, or AUC, for protection. The US State Department has labeled the AUC a terrorist group.

~snip~
Gomez-Bustamante was first indicted in 2002, and arrested trying to enter Cuba in 2004. He was deported to Colombia in 2007 and extradited to the US.


Read more: http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=248788&version=1&template_id=43&parent_id=19

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Luis Hernando Gomez-Bustamante, "Rasguno"

[Judi Lynn]

1. What most Americans don't realize is that when Bush brings these narco-traffickers here,

he is taking them out of the reach of the Colombian Justice system, and away from any possibility of being tried for their parts in the torture and massacres of sometimes entire villages.

The relatives of the victims of massacres are furious that they have worked out the arrangement to be brought here, serve a few years for narcotrafficking, and never have to answer for their mass murders in Colombia, or even to divulge in what mass grave they buried their victims.

If I get some time tonight I'll post info. on this aspect of this shrewd maneuvering by _Bush and the Colombian President. These clowns should really be forced to answer FIRST for their direct participation in horrendous abuse of human beings, and take care of that FIRST, before giving any thought to narcotrafficking whatsoever.

The Human Rights aspect is obviously far more explosive, and it's dangerous to the right-wing Colombian government, as the ties go all the way to the President's office, as he himself has been implicated by witnesses in planning a massacre in Colombia. His cousin has already been arrested, as well as his own head of his secret police, Jorge Noguera, who was ALSO found to have been involved in a plot to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Other of Uribe's cabinet members have been charged, as well as a HUGE number of Congressmen from his own party, who have even been connected to making arrangements to have these killers assassinate their own political opponents.

Eventually ALL the truth about this is going to be common knowledge. There's no way they can kill all of the reporters forever, and sooner or later more people in the corporate media will tempted to go off the reservation and start dealing with telling the truth, and writing about the material everyone else already knows.