Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela has requested through letters that the United States justice system allow him to leave prison. Credit: Referece image: Bogota City Attorney’s Office
After being captured in Colombia (1995) and sent to the United States (2005) to serve a sentence for drug trafficking, Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela, boss of the Cali Cartel, has used different strategies to obtain his freedom and return to his country. The most recent one was presented by his lawyer, who claims that the now octogenarian criminal has lost his mind.
In other attempts, Rodriguez Orejuela has requested through letters that the United States justice system allow him to leave prison as an act of clemency for good behavior. He sent a letter to the Southern District Court of Florida with a request for humanitarian reduction called “Level Two Reduction.”
In April 2023, the former boss requested his release arguing his delicate health condition and presenting certificates of good conduct from his years in prison. In his letter, he asked not to suffer the same fate as his brother Gilberto, who died in a prison in North Carolina in 2022.
Recently he also wrote to President Gustavo Petro offering to act as a “peace facilitator” and reveal unknown details about the operations of the Cartel, its alliances, and the struggles against Pablo Escobar.
His lawyer says the former boss is losing his mind and coordination
In recent days, his defense team released another letter sent to the Federal Court of Florida in which he requests that he be granted parole, arguing that the former drug trafficker is losing his mind and coordination. It explains that Rodriguez Orejuela, 82 years old, is showing a picture of dementia: “His body is failing, his mind is gone.”
In the 13-page document, the defense states that its client has been suffering various problems that have led him to lose awareness of where he is and his current situation. “He currently suffers from advanced vascular dementia, a condition rooted in irreversible organic brain damage, characterized by a documented inability to maintain even his temporal location and geographic reality,” it says.
Based on that condition, Rodriguez Orejuela’s lawyer requests “compassion” for the former drug trafficking boss who, due to his condition, walks the corridors of the Texas prison at dawn, the lawyer maintains, and adds that in his mind he tries to escape law enforcement operations in the mountains of Colombia, as if attempting to relive the intense search operation that led to his capture on August 6, 1995.
“His deterioration explains why Miguel frequently wakes his cellmates at 3 in the morning demanding a taxi to Bogota,” the lawyer stated, and cited several medical and psychological reports indicating that he is not in condition of his mental capacities, which puts his personal integrity at risk if he continues deprived of liberty under the strict prison regime of the United States.
“He does not possess the necessary functions to manage his daily activities and lacks the mental capacity required to be a danger to the community,” the lawyer states, and also reports that a group of relatives of the former boss of the Cali Cartel has full willingness and support to take care of him in Colombia, for which he added several letters and supporting documents.
He requests that, once released, his deportation process to Colombia be carried out immediately. Now it remains for the United States justice system to evaluate the request and make a decision.