U.S. Extraditions Raise Concerns in Colombia

American officials have responded by trying to reassure outraged Colombians. Laura Sweeney, a spokeswoman for the Department of Justice, said that commanders extradited to the United States have "been made available to cooperate, if they choose to do so, in Colombian cases, including making statements as defendants or witnesses to Colombian judicial officials."

Still, even within Uribe's government, some officials have expressed concern that U.S. courts will reward commanders for cooperating on drug investigations but do little to spur their assistance in resolving politically motivated crimes in Colombia.

"We are very worried," Vice President Francisco Santos said this month in his office, wondering whether the use of extraditions could become counterproductive for Colombia. "We don't understand how a tool that is supposed to be used to punish could be used in a process of negotiations."

The commanders, now held in jails in Washington, Miami and New York, are represented by American defense attorneys who said in interviews that they want to negotiate deals with the United States. Under the deals, their clients would provide Colombian investigators with information, and U.S. courts would take that cooperation into account when they are sentenced. Colombia would also shield the commanders from charges here once they are released from American jails.

Joaquín Pérez, a Miami lawyer who represents top commander Salvatore Mancuso, said the commanders face prison terms that easily surpass 30 years. "The only way this will work is if they have an incentive that by continuing in the process, they get some recognition," said Perez, who for years has represented paramilitary commanders in negotiations with U.S. officials.

The Justice Department declined to comment about the kind of deals that could be offered to the commanders, who face mandatory minimum sentences.

But three former federal prosecutors said that the Justice Department could file motions permitting judges to sentence below the mandatory minimum -- which, for instance, is 10 years for conspiracy to import five kilograms of cocaine -- if the commanders provide "substantial assistance" for investigators working other cases. That ruling could be made to encompass the atrocities committed in Colombia, the prosecutors say.

"If they're involved in really bad things, enormous atrocities, and they can cooperate against similarly situated people in the hierarchy, then maybe that's something the government would be interested in," said Anthony S. Barkow, a former federal prosecutor who directs New York University's Center on the Administration of Criminal Law.

When paramilitary commanders decided to disband thousands of fighters earlier this decade and engage the government in talks designed to win lenient punishment, they did not think they would wind up in the United States, said Juan Rubbini, a former adviser to Mancuso who lives in Medellin. To the commanders, Rubbini said, Uribe was a politician whose tough, anti-guerrilla position clearly paralleled theirs.

"Did they expect something soft?" Rubbini said. "Sure."

Under the government's initial Justice and Peace Law, approved by Congress in 2005, commanders received generous benefits for demobilizing. But then the Constitutional Court struck down several provisions in 2006 and required that commanders pay reparations to victims and confess to their crimes, or risk losing benefits.

Some commanders barely acknowledged their role in well-known atrocities. Others have never stopped talking. In May, Uribe astonished his countrymen by extraditing the 15 top commanders. Only a handful of commanders with the same knowledge remain in Colombia.