Officials hope that Salvatore Mancuso will cooperate by revealing

Former Colombian paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso has been repatriated after serving a drug trafficking sentence in the United States.   Salvatore Mancuso arrived at Bogota’s El Dorado airport on Tuesday. Having seen several requests to be sent to Italy, where he also has citizenship, denied, he was quickly taken into police custody, with authorities hoping he would shed light on hundreds of crimes that took place during civil unrest in the 1990s and early 2000s.   Now 59, Mancuso, who arrived on a charter flight carrying dozens of Colombians deported after illegally entering the US, was formerly a leader of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia. The paramilitary group, founded by cattle ranchers, fought against left-wing rebels during one of the most violent stretches of Colombia’s decades-long armed conflict.   Human rights organisations and government officials hope that he will cooperate with the justice system and provide information about hundreds of crimes.   Mancuso has confessed his co-responsibility for numerous massacres. He has been in prison in the US since 2008 for drug trafficking, and has indicated he is now ready to take on the role of “peace advocate”.   “I come to continue with my commitments to the victims, but at the same time, I come to put myself at the service of a peace agenda that will prevent Colombia from being an eternal factory of victims and collective pain,” Mancuso said in a statement distributed to the media upon his arrival.   He will remain in prison in Colombia, where courts have judged him responsible for more than 1,500 acts of murder and disappearances. He will attempt to get a reduced sentence, and possibly a release from prison, from a transitional justice system created by Colombia’s 2016 peace deal.   Play Video   UNIKS UNIKS UNIKS