Extradition to U.S.
for Colombian rebelAn isle resident was among
those killed in Colombia in 1999
BOGOTA, Colombia >> President Alvaro Uribe signed an order last week to send a rebel to the United States to face murder charges there in connection with the 1999 murder of three American activists, including a woman from the Big Island.
Nelson Vargas Rueda will be the first rebel extradited to the United States by Colombia.
Vargas is one of six members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, indicted in April 2002 in federal court in Washington, D.C., in the murders of Terence Freitas, 24, of Los Angeles; Ingrid Washinawatok, 41, of New York; and Lahe'ena'e Gay, 39, of Pahoa, Hawaii. Washinawatok was a Menominee Indian originally from Wisconsin.
They were in Colombia to help set up a school system for the 5,000-member U'wa Indian tribe.
FARC rebels kidnapped the three in February 1999 in northeastern Colombia, the indictment says.
Days later, the kidnappers shot the victims. Their bullet-riddled bodies were found across the border in Venezuela.
Under a barrage of international criticism, the FARC admitted its fighters killed the Americans. They blamed a rogue lower-level commander and said he would be punished internally.
The killings prompted the United States to suspend all contact with the FARC, a rebel group that has been fighting a series of elected governments in this South American nation for 38 years.
The United States considers the FARC an international terrorist organization.
The State Department considers most of the country unsafe for Americans.
The United States has also asked for the extradition of several other FARC rebels, including top leaders, in connection with drug trafficking cases.