A warlord involved in hundreds of murders is released from a Colombian prison

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombian warlord Salvatore Mancuso has been released from prison in the South American country after repeatedly asking the courts to approve his freedom. Before his release Wednesday, he promised to collaborate in the government’s rapprochement with illegal armed groups. Mancuso was a leader of a paramilitary group founded by cattle ranchers. He was repatriated from the United States in February after serving a 12-year drug-trafficking sentence and then spending three years in an immigration detention facility while officials decided whether to send him to Colombia or Italy, where he also is a citizen. Colombian courts had judged him responsible for more than 1,500 acts of murder and disappearances during  Colombia’s decades-long armed conflict.