Three of the 15 hostages rescued from leftist guerrillas last July in a daring sting operation by Colombian soldiers were American military contractors, so it's little surprise that the U.S. Department of Justice has been trying to extradite the man believed to have been one of their head jailers. Colombia's Supreme Court, however, was right to deny the request Wednesday.
A U.S. indictment maintains that Martin Sombra was directly responsible for the harsh treatment of Thomas Howes, Keith Stansell and Marc Gonsalves. Sombra was the prison director for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and over the course of 40 years he also imprisoned dozens, if not hundreds, of his own countrymen, including Franco-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt.
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