Photo: THIBAUD MORITZ/AFP/Getty Images
By: The opinion Posted 01 Sep 2023, 16:46 pm EDT
There are cases in which reality is stranger than fiction, and prison breaks are some examples, although what happened in Colombia is unprecedented, since a hitman escaped from a prison for a year without the authorities knowing.
This strange fact has caused doubts among the population, as it should be remembered that, in prisons, there is a strict control to avoid escapes that includes the roll call twice a day, so It is unlikely that a year has passed without the absence of one of the inmates being noticed.
The subject was identified as Alberto Elias Restrepowho is nicknamed “Ant”, according to the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, which added that he was the head of the Los Descuartizadores gang, a criminal cell related to the gulf clan and he was imprisoned in La Picota prison since February 20, 2020.
In that place he was serving a 60-year sentence for several homicides and forced disappearances in Córdoba and Antioquia, for which this criminal did not hesitate to escape to avoid spending the rest of his life behind bars.
That’s how they found out about the leak
Being a hitman with a long criminal career, “Hormiga” still had pending investigations, so on June 2 he was summoned to court to answer for the crimes of four other people, but the offender never arrived, which triggered the alerts of the Colombian authoritieswho immediately investigated and discovered the reason for his absence.
The man walked out of jailevidently helped by the prison authorities, since those in charge of custody assure that they did not receive the conviction against the hitman and, therefore, they released him, although the court that issued it says that it sent it before they released him .
In addition, a criminal report was created for the possible crime of favoring escape, in a file that dotted an official from the legal office of La Picota who would have processed the release of ‘Ant’, as well as who signed it, the then director of the prison, Carlos Camacho.
Another irregularity detected in the case is that, when requesting the folder where the judge’s release order is located, it was empty, so an investigation was launched.
Regarding the escaped hitman, it was reported that, in addition to being a member of Los Descuartizadores – an organization that he concealed his victims by dismembering and burying them clandestinely– was a member of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia until 2016, when the government signed agreements to dismantle the paramilitary organizations.
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