Family of former Paraguayan president Raúl Cubas will seek the extradition of Rodrigo Granda

The lawyer of the family of the former Paraguayan president Raul Cubas (1998-1999) announced this Tuesday, April 16, 2024, that it will seek the extradition to Paraguay of Rodrigo Grandaa member of the last secretariat of the extinct FARC and who is being investigated for his alleged involvement in the kidnapping and murder, two decades ago, of Cecilia Cubas.

Lawyer Andrés Casati told ABC Cardinal radio that they will request the sentencing court in charge of the case “a reiteration of the international arrest warrant for extradition purposes” against Rodrigo Granda, after the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) in Colombia reported that it does not have the power to judge this fact.

Asked about the possibility of extradition being required, Casati anticipated that Cecilia Cubas’ mother, former senator Mirta Gusinky, “is firm and with the intention that each and every one of those responsible for the kidnapping and murder of his daughter face the courts“.

He pointed out that they seek that the accused “be tried by independent judges and that they, if they have any debt to justice, pay it.”

“Until the last person responsible, is Mrs. Mirta’s intention. Without grudges, without hatred, but with a thirst for justice“he added.

Cubas was kidnapped on September 21, 2004 between the cities of Fernando de la Mora and San Lorenzo and her lifeless body was found in a house in the city of Ñemby on February 16, 2005, despite the payment of a large payment to his release.

The JEP, which offers alternative sentences to prison, was studying whether to include this fact, for which Paraguay requests the extradition of Granda, in Macrocase 01, which judges the “taking of hostages, serious provocations of freedom and other concurrent crimes committed by the FARC”.

Granda possibly advised the Marxist Free Homeland Party (PPL), the seed of the Paraguayan People’s Army (EPP) guerrilla, for said kidnapping.

In October 2022, the JEP granted Rodrigo Granda “de jure amnesty” for the crime of rebellion for which he was convicted by the Third Criminal Court of the Cúcuta Circuit, in the department of Norte de Santander, on April 21, 2006.

However, he now assures that there is a “lack of jurisdiction… to administer justice in the events that occurred on September 21, 2004 in Paraguay,” despite the evidence presented by Granda.

In October 2021, Granda was detained in Mexico, where he had traveled to participate in an international seminar of the Labor Party (PT). However, he returned to his country without the red search and capture alert requested by Paraguay for his extradition to that country.

Granda – according to the Comunes party, which emerged from the demobilization of the FARC – had received authorization from the JEP to travel to Mexico and, therefore, the Colombian Government could not request his arrest from the authorities of another country.