The assassination of presidential candidate
Ex-Colombian justice minister convicted in '89 killing
Friday, October 12, 2007
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- A former justice minister was convicted Thursday of masterminding the assassination of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan, a cartel-fighting politician.
Alberto Santofimio was sentenced to 24 years in prison by a Bogota court for ordering a hit squad belonging to drug kingpin Pablo Escobar to kill Galan in 1989 to boost his own candidacy and prevent Escobar's extradition to the United States.
"This ruling reaffirms our belief as a nation in the justice system, that the participation of politicians in the murder of my father won't go unpunished," Sen. Juan Manuel Galan told The Associated Press.
Santofimio's trial, which began in 2006, was one of the most watched in decades here, involving the testimony of three former presidents and a former television diva who was Escobar's lover.
But the prosecution's star witness was John Jairo Velasquez, the ruthless head of Escobar's army of assassins, who testified wearing in a bulletproof vest. He said he was at a meeting where Santofimio urged Escobar to arrange Galan's assassination.
"He was 100 percent calm," Velasquez told RCN TV in an interview from prison last year. "He was removing a political enemy from his path."
Santofimio was running for the Liberal Party nomination against Galan, whose charisma and perceived moral rectitude drew comparisons to John F. Kennedy. Escobar and members of his Medellin cartel feared Galan's victory would mean their extradition from Colombia to the United States.
The 63-year old Santofimio, who was a senator and justice minister in the 1970s, was known as the "political godfather" of Escobar. In 1995, he was convicted and spent four years in prison for taking money from drug traffickers.
He has been jailed since he was charged in 2005 in the Galan assassination.
Juan Manuel Galan said he hoped Santofimio would reveal details about other cartel-linked politicians and state security agents that may have also participated in his father's murder.
"He's got lot left to explain," Galan said.
Before Escobar was killed by police in 1993, cartel assassins killed scores of judges, an attorney general, Cabinet ministers, journalists and police as part of a terror campaign to prevent his extradition to the United States. Hundreds of other Colombians died in cartel bomb attacks in Bogota and Medellin.
Galan, who was shot and killed while campaigning south of Bogota, was so far ahead in the polls for the 1990 presidential elections that he was virtually assured of victory. His campaign manager, Cesar Gaviria, ran in his place after the attack and was elected president.
