Colombian Police Arrest Rebel Leader Wanted By US

Colombian police arrest rebel leader wanted by US

BOGOTA, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) — The Colombian authorities have arrested a suspected rebel leader wanted by the United States on drug trafficking charges, official said on Sunday.

Farouk Shaikh Reyes, a clandestine member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, was captured by soldiers and police at Bogota’s international airport as he arrived on a flight from Mexico on Saturday night.

Shaikh Reyes is wanted by a federal court in Florida on charges of conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States to trade for weapons for FARC.

“A Florida court indicted him on Feb. 15 for conspiring to possess with the intention to distribute more than five km of cocaine in the United States,” said the prosecutor’s director of forensics, Jaime Lopez.

Shaikh Reyes was arrested thanks to the collaboration of rebel leaders Simon Trinidad and Omaira Rojas now in custody in the United States, said General Carlos Suarez, commander of the army’s fifth division.

FARC, the largest armed rebel group in Colombia, has about 17,000 fighters and controls nearly 40 percent of the country’s territory.