The return of former drug trafficker Fabio Ochoa to Colombia following his deportation from the United States has reopened old wounds among victims of the Medellín cartel, with some expressing dismay at the Colombian authorities’ decision to let Ochoa walk free.
Some of the cartel victims said Tuesday they are hoping the former drug lord will at least cooperate with ongoing efforts by human rights groups to investigate one of the most violent periods of Colombia’s history and demanded that Colombian prosecutors take Ochoa in for questioning.
In the late ’80s and early ’90s the Medellín cartel killed police officers, politicians, judges, journalists and bystanders as it waged war on the Colombian state, which had stepped up its efforts to cut off drug shipments, arrest drug traffickers and seize their properties. Some historians in Colombia attribute 10,000 killings to cartel leader Pablo Escobar.
Ochoa was one of the cartel’s key operators at the time and lived for several years in Miami where he ran a distribution center for the cocaine cartel. He has denied being involved in the cartel killings. But many victims of the cartel and their relatives are highly skeptical of that claim.
Bogotá Mayor Carlos Fernando Galán was 12 when his father, presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán was killed by cartel hitmen in 1989.
On Monday night Galán wrote in a message on X that it was “unacceptable” for Ochoa not to be facing any charges in Colombia.
Galán’s older brother, Juan Manuel Galán, went further.
“The majority of the [Medellín cartel’s] crimes are in impunity” he wrote on X. “Along with thousands of victims we hope to know the truth about Ochoa’s responsibility and that of his allies in kidnappings, murders and indiscriminate acts of terrorism.”
Ochoa was deported to Colombia on Monday after serving more than 20 years in prison in the U.S. for a drug trafficking conviction, which was not related to any killings in Colombia.
The 67-year-old had his fingerprints taken at the airport and was let go by immigration officials who ran his name through a database and confirmed he is not wanted by Colombian authorities.
Speaking to journalists, who frantically swarmed around him in Bogotá’s airport, Ochoa claimed he had been “framed” by U.S. prosecutors. He added that he had paid for his drug trafficking crimes in Colombia in the early 1990s, when he spent several years in a Colombian prison.
Ochoa was released in 1996 but was once again arrested in 1999 and was extradited to the U.S. in 2001 in response to an indictment in Miami naming him and more than 40 others as part of a drug smuggling conspiracy.
Gonzalo Enrique Rojas was a young boy in 1989 when his father died on a commercial plane that was blown up by the Medellín cartel, killing all 107 people on board.
Rojas, who now leads a foundation for victims of Colombia’s conflict said that Ochoa’s return to Colombia presents an opportunity for more details to be known about that incident, such as what motivated the cartel to attack a plane full of civilians, and what were its relations with members of the Colombian government.
He said that Colombian prosecutors should interrogate Ochoa about this event and other crimes committed by the cartel. He added that his foundation, Colombia with Memory, will also try to seek a meeting with the former cartel boss.
“The years in prison [for cartel leaders] are not that relevant for those of us who are victims of the Medellín cartel,” Rojas said. “What really repairs the pain is justice and truth.”
