BOGOTA (Reuters) – Three Interpol Red Notices have been reactivated for Ivan Marquez, a former top commander of Colombia’s demobilized rebel group FARC, the head of Colombia’s police Jorge Vargas said on Wednesday.
Marquez was one of the negotiators of the 2016 peace deal agreed by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the government. But he disappeared just two years later in 2018 after his nephew was arrested and bundled off to the United States.
Marquez later emerged in 2019 as the leader of the so-called Segunda Marquetalia, a group of former FARC rebels who reject the peace deal and have once again taken up arms.
“The national police and the attorney general’s Office (…) have reactivated three Red Notices against Ivan Marquez for the crimes of aggravated homicide, homicide of a protected person, forced disappearance, and illegal recruitment of people,” Vargas said.
“We have formally asked Interpol’s central office in Venezuela to locate and capture alias Ivan Marquez, who is in Venezuela, to be extradited to Colombia and answer for these crimes,” he added.
A Red Notice is a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action, according to Interpol’s website.
Previous arrest warrants and court proceedings against Marquez had been suspended as part of the peace deal.
The United States is offering up to $10 million for information that could lead to Marquez’s capture, while Colombian authorities will offer up to 3 billion pesos (around $766,559), Vargas added.
The notices have been issued for crimes committed in 2001 and 2002, he said, although new arrest warrants will be ordered for Marquez’s more recent crimes, such as drugs and weapons trafficking.
The government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who has previously proffered mixed messaging on Marquez’s whereabouts, was not immediately available to comment.
(Reporting by Nelson Bocanegra and Oliver Griffin in Bogota; Additional reporting by Vivian Sequera in Caracas; Editing by Dan Grebler)
