Carlos Lehder: Former Medellin Cartel boss launched in Colombia after choose guidelines his sentence expired | EUROtoday

Colombian authorities launched former Medellin Cartel boss Carlos Lehder on Monday after a choose dominated {that a} drug trafficking sentence issued in Colombia in opposition to the 75-year-old had expired.

Lehder was arrested Friday evening shortly after he landed in Bogota’s airport, with immigration officers saying he was nonetheless needed within the South American nation on drug trafficking costs and weapons smuggling.

Lehder grew to become the primary Colombian drug trafficker extradited to the United States after he was arrested throughout a celebration at his ranch.

The former drug trafficker was extradited to the U.S. in 1987, the place he served greater than 30 years in jail.

In 2020, Lehder was launched after serving two-thirds of his U.S. sentence. He was deported to Germany, the place he’s additionally a citizen.

Lehder had not returned to Colombia since his extradition to the United States. His lawyer, Sondra Macollins mentioned he was making an attempt to go to kin when he arrived Friday.

“He is recovering from cancer, and has high blood pressure problems,” Macollins advised Colombia’s Blu radio. “We are talking about someone who spent years in dark cells.”

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Colombian authorities convicted Lehder for drug trafficking in 1995, whereas he was serving the separate sentence at a U.S. jail.

The cartel boss was sentenced to 24 years in jail in Colombia, that means his sentence expired in 2019, in keeping with Colombian regulation.

The son of a German immigrant who arrived in Colombia within the Nineteen Twenties, Lehder started his legal profession within the Seventies when he lived with kin in New York City.

He used his contacts and his data of English to open cocaine markets for the Medellin Cartel and have become a key ally of its boss Pablo Escobar.

Lehder purchased land within the Bahamas that grew to become an important stopover level for cocaine flights.

In Colombia, he owned an expensive rural resort often called the Posada Alemana, which had caged lions on its grounds and a big statue of Lehder’s favourite musician, John Lennon.

In the U.S., Lehder was initially sentenced to life in jail however managed to scale back his sentence by offering U.S. investigators with info that was used to prosecute Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega.