The Unit for the Search for Persons Given as Disappeared (UBPD) and the former head of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) paramilitaries, Salvatore Mancuso, have agreed to work together to search for victims of forced disappearance on the border with Venezuela.
Mancuso will provide new data that will make it possible to locate points of forensic interest in border areas, after revealing to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) of Colombia that there are more than 200 corpses that were thrown into mass graves in Venezuelan territory as a result of collusion between the AUC and the Army.
The UBPD has reaffirmed the will to advance in the humanitarian and extrajudicial search actions for disappeared persons in the framework of the armed conflict in the border area, indicating that they are “aware of the unprecedented challenge that the search for disappeared persons entails in a humanitarian mission of a binational character, something unprecedented”.
The body has indicated that it is working with the Ministry of Justice to specify the processes of this mission, “which will be an act of absolute reparation for the victims.”
The former paramilitary leader has been in an immigrant detention center in Atlanta, United States, for two years, awaiting his extradition to Colombia, where a few months ago he was granted four years of probation, although he has pending issues. with Justice for his past at the head of the AUC. For this reason, he testified before the JEP in his last attempt to qualify as a third collaborator for special justice.
Known as ‘Triple Cero’ during his armed past, he has acknowledged having been involved in at least 300 murders, among which are those of the El Aro massacre, which led to a 40-year prison sentence that he never served for joining the Justice and Peace Law mechanism, promoted by former President Álvaro Uribe to demobilize paramilitaries. In turn, he has two judicial processes open in Colombia for his responsibility in more than 600 homicides, the forced displacement of almost 1,000 people and more than thirty forced disappearances.