WASHINGTON, Feb 12 (Reuters) - The United States will freeze assets of a former Colombian paramilitary chief and those of his associates, including his wife, suspected of helping him smuggle cocaine, the U.S. Treasury said on Tuesday. Carlos Mario Jimenez, known as Macaco, was the first paramilitary commander to lose benefits he received under a peace deal with the Colombian government. He is accused of breaking the deal by directing drug-running operations from his jail cell. "Jimenez is among the most dangerous Colombian narcotics traffickers today," Adam Szubin, director of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, said in a statement. The measure freezes assets that he or his partners, including his wife Rosa Eldemira Luna Cordoba, have under U.S. jurisdiction. It prohibits all financial and commercial transactions by any American with them or the businesses they manage, including cattle companies, a restaurant and a ceramics business all located in and around the Colombian city of Medellin. Colombian authorities in August kicked Jimenez out of the deal under which more than 31,000 paramilitaries have turned in their guns in exchange for reduced jail terms for crimes ranging from drug smuggling to murder. Jimenez has been indicted on federal drug trafficking charges in Washington DC and Florida. U.S. authorities requested his extradition last October. (Reporting by Adriana Garcia; editing by Stuart Grudgings)
Yolanda Pulecio (R), the mother of Colombian-French politician Ingrid Betancourt, speaks to Pope Benedict XVI after the weekly general audience in Paul VI hall at the Vatican February 6, 2008. Betancourt ...
