US sentences Belize drug trafficker with paramilitary links
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| Published on Saturday, March 24, 2007 |
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NEW YORK, USA (AFP): A New York court sentenced a Belize cocaine trafficker with links to a Colombian paramilitary group to 33 years in jail, officials said.
Robert James Hertular was handed the 400-month term for conspiring to traffic tonnes of cocaine into the United States and threatening to kill US federal agents investigating him in Belize, a statement from a New York prosecutor said Thursday.
He also was ordered to pay a 250,000-dollar fine by a district judge.
The 36-year-old was first arrested in 2001 when Belize authorities seized 1.1 tonnes of cocaine heading from the Central American country to the US from Colombia. He was later extradited to the US on other charges in 2004.
While facing charges in Belize, he threatened that he could have hitmen murder agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration unless they called off their own investigations into his cocaine trafficking.
Hertular told the DEA in 2001 that he had trafficking links to Carlos Castano, the late leader of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) paramilitary organisation, according to the statement. | | | | Reads : 189 | | | |
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