Accused Colombian drug lord frees captured men
BOGOTA, April 5 (Reuters) - An accused Colombian drug lord released 25 men his organization had seized after he accused rivals of sending them to assassinate him in a turf war, a diplomat said on Saturday.
Daniel Rendon, known as Don Mario, handed over the men in Antioquia state to a team from the Organization of American States, according to Sergio Caramagna, chief of an OAS mission overseeing the disarming of Colombian paramilitaries.
"They are in good health and good physical condition," Caramagna told Reuters by telephone.
The captive combatants were part of the Medellin-based "Paises" gang. Rendon, an ex-paramilitary leader who is in hiding, has said former right-wing militia bosses Evert Veloza and Diego Fernando Murillo dispatched them to kill him.
Both ex-paramilitary leaders, who have been sent to prison under a peace agreement with the government to disarm their death squads, have denied the accusation.
In the incident in which the men were seized, at least seven people were killed in a shootout including two police officers whom authorities say were working undercover. Rendon said were on the payroll of his rivals.
It was unclear when the incident took place, but details were released in a video made by Rendon that was confiscated by police and broadcast on Friday.
President Alvaro Uribe negotiated the surrender of paramilitary commanders, who once fought left-wing rebels and who committed massacres, trafficked cocaine and grabbed farmland in the name of counterinsurgency.
Militia bosses handed over their weapons, demobilized about 30,000 fighters and promised to stop criminal activity in exchange for short prison terms. Uribe also froze extradition warrants provided they abide by their peace accord.
But rights groups say the former warlords have kept their criminal networks alive and some ex-combatants such as Rendon have abandoned the peace deal and joined forces in the narcotics trade, authorities say.
Rendon is the brother of Freddy Rendon, alias The German, one of the former paramilitary leaders who surrendered under the peace accord. "Don Mario" demobilized but later rearmed when a conflict broke out with rivals, officials said.
Helped by millions of dollars in U.S. aid, Uribe has sent troops to retake areas once under the control of armed groups and violence has ebbed. But rebels and former paramilitaries still battle over Colombia's huge cocaine trade. (Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; Writing by Patrick Markey in Bogota; Editing by Peter Cooney and Xavier Briand)
