A former leftist rebel who terrorized residents of southern Colombia after abandoning the country’s peace process and plunging into drug trafficking has been killed in combat, Colombian President Ivan Duque announced Friday.
Walter Arizala was killed during a “heroic operation” earlier in the day after a months-long manhunt that followed the kidnapping and murder of three Ecuadorian press workers in the turbulent border area.
Many Colombians “can now sleep peacefully because one of the most horrendous criminals our country has ever known has fallen,” Duque said.
Arizala, who is better known by his alias Guacho, led a small holdout faction of a few dozen guerrillas from the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
His group has been behind a wave of drug-related violence, including the March kidnapping of three newspaper workers from Ecuador’s El Comercio newspaper who were later found slain.
Arizala’s troops also are believed to have been behind the slaying of three Colombian judicial workers in July.