The Colombian authorities on Wednesday (September 15th) handed over to Interpol a suspected member of the ELN (National Liberation Army) guerrillas with a view to his extradition to the United States, an official source has learned.
José Gabriel Alvarez Ortiz, alias “Alex”, was handed over to Interpol this morning so that he could
“be transferred and handed over to the United States'
justice system,” Justice Minister Wilson Ruiz said on Twitter.
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Like two other alleged members of the ELN extradited and handed over to American justice in August, José Gabriel Alvarez Ortiz is wanted by a Texas court "
for having manufactured, distributed and detained (...) cocaine"
at the border Venezuelan in order to export it to the United States. His extradition had been postponed for several weeks due to a coronavirus infection. The ELN denied that these people belong to the rebellion.
The last active guerrilla war in Colombia after the signing in 2016 of an agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) after half a century of conflict, the ELN, a Guevarist movement, has been fighting since 1964 and is believed to number nearly 2,300 fighters.
In March, the government of Conservative President Ivan Duque extradited eleven ELN members to the United States.
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Ivan Duque had buried the peace talks with the ELN led in Cuba by his predecessor, Juan Manuel Santos, following a car bomb attack on a police academy that left 22 cadets dead, as well as the assailant in January 2019.
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