MADRID 25 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Government of Colombia has once again requested the United States to release the leader of the dissolved FARC Ricardo Palmera, alias ‘Simón Trinidad’, who has been serving a 60-year sentence in a Colorado prison since 2004, after already requesting release. pardon within the framework of the 2016 peace agreements.
“On behalf of the Government of Colombia, we respectfully request the President of the United States of America to grant clemency and pardon to Mr. Juvenal Ovidio Ricardo Palmera Pineda,” states the letter sent by the ambassador in Washington Daniel García Peña, as far as he could. know Caracol News.
The letter is dated November 12, as revealed by the aforementioned network in the last few hours. It also refers to another note sent by the Colombian ambassador to the United States National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, with the same purpose.
The Colombian Government has argued that the release of ‘Simón Trinidad’ could help advance President Gustavo Petro’s policy of ‘total peace’ and thereby bring stability a little closer to the region, in order to “strengthen democracy, Human Rights, freedom and the rule of law”.
In addition to the diplomatic note, García Peña has requested the United States Department of Justice for the possibility of visiting ‘Trinidad’ in the maximum security prison in Colorado where he is serving a prison sentence for the kidnapping in February 2003 of three American contractors, released five years later.
This is not the first time that Casa Nariño has asked Washington for a pardon for ‘Trinidad’, a recurring demand among the current secretariat of Comunes, a party that emerged after the dissolution of the FARC and the signing of the 2016 agreements. Within the framework of those negotiations, the then government of Juan Manuel Santos already made this same claim.