A secret proposal to present sanctuary to Pablo Escobar’s household within the UK has come to gentle.
Colombian authorities informed diplomats the world’s most notorious drug lord was planning to give up on the situation that his spouse and youngsters got asylum, with Britain named because the “preferred destination”, newly launched paperwork from 1993 have revealed.
Born within the slums of Medellin, Colombia’s second-largest metropolis, Escobar rose to construct a billion-dollar drug cartel which managed round 80 per cent of the world’s cocaine commerce and made an estimated £340m per week.
Colombian Juan Pablo Escobar, son of drug lord Pablo Escobar killed in 1993
(AFP by way of Getty Images and Sky)
The information, now within the nationwide archives in Kew, southwest London, present Colombia’s attorney-general, Gustavo de Greiff, unexpectedly visited the British embassy in September 1993, with a proposal in thoughts.
“He said that Pablo Escobar was ready to surrender himself provided that his family could go abroad for a time until things quietened down,” learn a memo despatched to London, based on The Times. “Britain had been indicated as the preferred destination. De Grieff said that the family members concerned were his wife, son, daughter, two sisters, one brother and eight nephews and nieces.”
Colombia’s international minister, Noemi Sanin de Rubio, immediately approached Britain’s everlasting consultant to the UN, David Hannay, in an try and cement an settlement. “Sanin said it was important that the request be treated in utmost confidence,” wrote Hannay. “If the UK agreed to admit the family, the Colombian government would not wish it to be known that it had played any role.”
The proposal seems to have perturbed Whitehall, as revealed in a response despatched on 7 October, 1993. “Escobar is a ruthless drugs trafficker and terrorist,” it said. “He is responsible for the murder of hundreds and perhaps thousands of people. His family live on [his] earnings from the drugs trade.”
It additionally warned of the hazards such a deal might put UK employees based mostly in Colombia in, whereas including that violence might observe the household into Britain.
The then house secretary, Michael Howard, imposed an exclusion order on the Escobars. When a primary cousin, Nicolas Enrique Escobar Urquijo, arrived at Heathrow airport in November 1993, the order was enforced, whereas the remainder of his household have been denied entry at Frankfurt airport and despatched again to Bogota.
Pablo Escobar (left) with Carlos Enrique Lehder Rivas, who was co-founder of the Medellin cartel
(American Heroes Channel)
Weeks later, Escobar was shot useless on a Medellin rooftop in a gunfight.
The drug lord’s spouse and youngsters got asylum in Argentina after being rejected by Germany and Mozambique.
Mr Howard, 82, who’s now Lord Howard of Lympne, stated he didn’t bear in mind blocking the Escobar household, including: “I knew of Escobar and went to Colombia, but that was after his death.”
Source: www.unbiased.co.uk
