At the time he was involved in arms, and training Colombian paramilitaries, also termed "death squads", and had established an international reputation for himself as a mercenary, and was all over the place involved in war-related actions. I saw his name repeatedly, he was in and out of prisons, etc at various times. Colombia's paramilitaries, by the way, were know as death squads, and they terrorized Colombian villagers relentlessly, and interfered with elections, as well, including assassinating people considered leftists and progressives, even a well-known anti-war TV comedian, Jaime Garzón, ethnic cleansing, social cleansing, publicly butchering villagers with chainsaws to instill paralyzing fear among them. ETC. The worst.
Just took a quick look, found this article:
Who Is Israel’s Yair Klein and What Was He Doing in Colombia and Sierra Leone?
STORY
JUNE 01, 2000
Last weekend, Colombian intelligence agents arrested two Israelis and a Colombian suspected of being part of an arms-smuggling network attempting to deliver more than 50,000 guns to guerrillas. [includes rush transcript]
Colombian officials are investigating whether the detained Israelis are linked to Yair Klein, an Israeli mercenary accused by Colombian authorities of training right-wing paramilitaries and drug-traffickers in the late 1980s and 1990s.
And it is this man Yair Klein that we are going to take a close look at today. It’s the story of a leading mercenary but also of the governments and shadowy forces he has worked with.
In late April, Yair Klein was released from a Sierra Leone prison where he spent 16 months on charges that he was smuggling arms to rebels from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF).
Klein is a former lieutenant colonel in the Israeli Army. In the 1980s he established a paramilitary mercenary company called Spearhead Ltd. Through this company, Klein began providing arms and training to forces in South America.
In 1989, Klein, along with several other former Israeli officers, was charged by authorities in Colombia of providing paramilitary training and arms to drug lords running international cocaine cartels. He is also accused of training Mafia assassins whose targets have included Colombian politicians. Klein is also suspected of involvement in the explosion of a Colombian airliner in November 1989.
More:
https://www.democracynow.org/2000/6/1/who_is_israels_yair_klein_and
- click for image -
https://tinyurl.com/2p8kvfdk
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