Colombia’s attorney general’s office announced on Monday that it is suspending the arrest warrant for the leader of the far-left rebel group the National Liberation Army (ELN), which is negotiating a ceasefire with the government from the end of 2022.

“I received a new decision signed by the president of the Republic, which this time requests the suspension [της ισχύος] of the arrest warrant against Mr. Antonio García of the ELN,” said Attorney General Francisco Barbosa during a public event.

“We think yes, it is possible to suspend the arrest warrant,” he added.

Antonio Garcia is the military leader of the Guevarist organization.

He is wanted for the forced recruitment of 71 minors and his involvement in the 2019 car bomb attack on a police academy that killed 22 people, in addition to the attacker.

The government of the social democrat Gustavo Petro, the first president in Colombia’s history who belongs to the left, and the ELN have been in talks since the 17th in Havana with a view to agreeing on the terms of a mutual cessation of hostilities.

Talks began in November 2022 in Caracas and continued in March in Mexico, where the two sides pledged to discuss a truce.

At the beginning of the year, President Petros announced that the parties had agreed to declare a mutual truce, but this was quickly denied by the ELN.

Despite the commitments made in Mexico, the March 29 death of nine Colombian soldiers in an ELN ambush called into question the continuation of the dialogue.

Shortly after assuming power in August 2022, Gustavo Petros requested that the arrest warrants against 16 rebel leaders be suspended so that they could take part in these talks. Antonio Garcia was not included in the list.

In the more than half century of civil conflict, Colombia has held several peace talks with armed groups, but without ending the war.

But in 2016, a historic agreement led to the disarmament and dissolution of the country’s most powerful rebel organization, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which was transformed into a political party.

The ELN, officially the last rebel group still active in Colombia, had at least 5,850 fighters in 2022, according to figures from the Latin American country’s defense ministry.