Former IDF lieutenant-colonel Yair Klein won his fight against extradition demanded by Colombia, appealing to human rights organizations that his life would be in extreme danger if Colombian authorities were to get their hands on him.
Colombia is not giving up and said it still will try to force the extradition of Klein, who was sentenced in absentia in 2001 to 11 years in jail. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos Calderón told the El Spectador newspaper, "After being released from prison, he acted with a corrupt man's cynicism, a criminal's cynicism – when he chose to send me and my country his regards.”
Israel is very unlikely to extradite Klein, who fled Colombia and was arrested in Moscow in 2007. The European Court of Human Rights accepted Klein’s appeal against extradition from Russia, agreeing that he would not receive a fair trial.
He previously spent 16 months in jail in a Sierra Leone prison in 1999 for gun-running in a “blood diamonds” deal. He also was fined by an Israeli court in 1991 for selling arms to Colombia militias.
Klein has denied that his training of far-right guerillas involved drug cartels, as Colombia has charged. He said three years ago that the Colombia government actually approved of his being hired to organize security for the banana industry in the northern part of the country.
His future in Israel apparently will not be quiet. Before leaving Russia, he said he wants to write books, which will cause "chaos” in Israel.