Weekly Report - 4 January 2005

On 31 December the Colombian government handed over to US officials the highest-ranking Farc guerrilla leader it had captured to date: the former banker Juvenal Ovidio Ricardo Palmera, better known as Simón Trinidad, the pseudonym he had chosen in honour of Bolí­var (whose full name was Simón José Antonio de la Santí­sima Trinidad Bolí­var). His extradition had been sought by the US to answer charges of shipping cocaine to the US and kidnapping three US nationals whose aircraft was downed in February 2002. It is not known if there is any hard evidence connecting Trinidad with either drug-trafficking or the capture of the three US nationals, but he may be convicted on the argument that he had command responsibility as a to Farc leader.

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