Veteran paramilitary boss, fugitive for more than decade, captured in central Colombia

Paramilitary leader, 71, captured in Colombia

BOGOTA — A veteran paramilitary leader and reputed founder of a bloody right-wing militia faction was arrested in central Colombia after more than a decade on the lam, police said Wednesday.

Hector Jose Buitrago, 71, was captured Tuesday in a rural area 60 kilometers (40 miles) north of Bogota, where he had been passing himself off as a local rancher, said Gen. Cesar Pinzon, commander of Bogota’s police force.

“Today he looks like Father Christmas, but he has 21 arrest orders out for him for massacres, disappearances, kidnappings, forming paramilitary groups, criminal conspiracy, homicides, anything you want,” Pinzon said by telephone.

The police general said the arrest of Buitrago — one of the oldest paramilitary leaders whose alleged criminal activities date back 30 years — came after tips from informants and four months of surveillance.

In 1978, Buitrago founded a criminal band called the Buitraguenos. That later became the Self-Defense Forces of Casanare, or ACC, one of many right-wing factions that united under the paramilitary umbrella group known as the AUC.

His son, known as Martin Llanos, took over the ACC from him and is currently one of Colombia’s most-wanted fugitives. Authorities say the ACC fought a bloody drug turf war with another paramilitary faction in Casanare and Meta provinces earlier this decade that caused thousands of deaths.

Colombia’s paramilitaries were initially formed by ranchers and landowners to protect against leftist guerrillas but later became involved in drug trafficking. Human rights groups say the paramilitaries were responsible for some of Colombia’s worst massacres.

Buitrago was sentenced to 40 years in prison, but escaped in 1999 after serving three years.

Government pressure led the paramilitaries to disband between 2003 and 2006, but Pinzon said Buitrago was never interested in participating in the demobilization process.