Right-Wing Death Squad Leader Killed in Colombia
BOGOTA, Colombia — The former leader of Colombia’s largest organization of right-wing death squads was found shot to death early Friday morning on a traffic circle, officials said.
A group of villagers found Ariel Otero’s body about 10 miles outside the central Colombian town of Puerto Boyaca, where the organization he led was based until the death squads surrendered to authorities last year.
Otero’s organization has been at war with its former partners, the Medellin cocaine cartel. Several death squad leaders were murdered last year, apparently by drug traffickers.
The organized death squads emerged in the early 1980s to protect wealthy landowners in central Colombia from attacks by leftist rebels.
Officials and independent human rights organizations accuse the squads of murdering hundreds of innocent peasants in their quest to rid the region of guerrillas.
Authorities had no information on who killed Otero.
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