Uribe says drug kingpin will be extradited to U.S. "without hesitation"

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said suspected drug lord Miguel Angel Mejia Munera, arrested this week just days after his twin brother was killed by police in a shootout, will be extradited to the United States "without hesitation" as soon as such a request is issued and the high court grants approval.

"If there is an extradition request, we will ask the Supreme Court to approve it. And the government's will in (this regard) is total: extradite him without any hesitation," the U.S.-backed Uribe said Friday in Manizales, the capital of the central-western province of Caldas.

Mejia Munera, who is wanted by U.S. courts on charges of large-scale drug trafficking, was captured in the central-western town of Honda. He was found hiding in a secret compartment of a tractor-trailer that was being escorted by a caravan of vehicles carrying his bodyguards, a police spokesman said.

On Tuesday, Mejia Munera's twin brother, Victor Manuel, was killed along with two of his bodyguards in another police operation at a ranch between the northwestern towns of Taraza and Caucasia. Three other people were arrested in that raid.

The brothers, known as "The Twins," joined the far-right United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, paramilitary federation earlier this decade, seeking to benefit from a peace deal that offered demobilized militia leaders reduced sentences and exempted them from extradition. A total of 31,000 AUC members handed in their weapons as part of the peace deal.

But the Mejia Munera brothers went on the lam after a presidential order was issued to jail the paramilitary chieftains and allegedly created emerging bands of militiamen dedicated to the drug trade.

Uribe congratulated police for the operations carried out against the Mejia Munera brothers.

"I want to congratulate, from Manizales, the National Police for these very important actions this week in the country's fight against drug trafficking and violence," Uribe said.

He also announced that a reward will be paid in the coming days to the informants whose tips led authorities to "The Twins."

Miguel Angel Mejia Munera, who is known by the alias "El Loco" and for whom the U.S. government had offered a $5 million reward, was taken to a military base in Mariquita, a town in the central-western province of Tolima, and then by helicopter to Bogota. EFE

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