Colombia nabs militiaman charged with 2,500 killings

[Judi Lynn]

Colombia nabs militiaman charged with 2,500 killings
Irish Sun
Wednesday 17th February, 2010
(IANS)

Bogota, Feb 17 (IANS/EFE) A fugitive Colombian militia commander accused of involvement in some 2,500 murders has been arrested, the Attorney General's Office said.

Arnolfo Santamaria Galindo, who formerly led a paramilitary unit in the southern province of Putumayo, was arrested in the Bogota suburb of Soacha, prosecutor Luis Gonzalez told the media.

Roughly 32,000 members of the AUC militia federation demobilised between 2003 and 2006 as part of a peace process with the government of President Alvaro Uribe, but Santamaria, like many paramilitaries, declined to lay down his arms.

Gonzalez said Santamaria's faction is blamed for some 5,000 killings and that the former warlord faces charges in connection with 2,500 deaths in Putumayo, a mainly jungle province bordering Ecuador and Peru.

Santamaria spent his time in Soacha peddling cell phones and styling himself as a shaman, Caracol television said.

More:
http://story.irishsun.com/index.php/ct/9/cid/2411cd3571b4f088/id/602419/cs/1/

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Article from 2007:

sunday, may 06, 2007
211 bodies in mass graves in southern Colombia

http://3.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_tETL01JknQ8/Rj399Sey6MI/AAAAAAAAAIk/flzQDKAdOnA/s320/fosa.jpg

211 bodies of men and women, mostly dismembered, were found in mass graves in Putumayo, southern Colombia.

According to the investigators of the Prosecutor and the Judicial Police, "it is established that the gentlemen" Macaco "and Arnolfo Santamaría Galindo, alias" Pipa ", second leader of the Central Bolivar Bloc of the AUC, were directly responsible for ordering the disappearance, torture and death of people considered at your convenience.

The self-defense entered the region set up illegal roadblocks at the entrances of the inspections, where they had informants who received up to 2 million dollars per draw guerrilla collaborators.

In most of the opportunities called "informants" drawn to people without reason, who finally were missing and murdered by paramilitaries.

Villagers say they have buried in that region over three thousand victims.

Google translation
http://carloscuentero.blogspot.com/2007/05/211-cadveres-en-fosas-comunes-al-sur-de.html