Colombian court sentenced to serving 11 years in prison and 3 months, seven former leaders of the American banana colossus Chiquita Brands International, because they had funded far -right paramilitary organization, notorious for the cruelty he had committed in 1990.

The court, in the county Antioch (northwestern), judged seven defendants for ‘Distinguished conspiracy to commit crimes’while he released three others, according to his verdict, consulted by the French Agency.

In addition to the prison sentences they will serve, the convicts should pay a fine of $ 3.4 million.

This is the first conviction against Chikita leaders in Colombia. US justice, however, had decided in 2024 to pay millions of dollars to victims of the Civil War, stressing that the multinational had given about $ 2 million to AUC (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia), a far -right paramilitary organization.

The AUC attributes a host of crimes committed in the context of the civil conflict that continues to today in the Latin American country.

Among the persons convicted are three former General Managers of the Colombian subsidiary of Tsikita from 1990 to 2004. One of them, Charles Dennis Kaiserhe is an American national.

The funds given by the business to AUC ‘Were used to finance expansion’ The action of the paramilitaries in the area, to facilitate murders, abductions, torture leaders of the so -called civil society and farmers, according to prosecutors.

Since the beginning of the US investigation, multinational assures that there was blackmail and that payments were made to protect its staff.

The AUC has been terrorizing for two decades by raising a ruthless war against far -left organizations and those who were perceived as sympathetic, sometimes with the contribution of the regular army. It is also known that it was involved in drug trafficking. The cartel Clan del Golfo It is partly a reincarnation of it.

Social Democratic President Gastavos Petovos Petros, Antonio Shangino, praised the “historical” and “exemplary” decision.

“For years, land workers and land workers have turned into victims of fear and violence. Today, justice has given the answer »judged via X.

The Civil War in Colombia, which lasts over half a century, is estimated to have over 10 million victims, including 1.1 million dead and 200,000 missing.

Banana Tsikita’s multinational colossus is nothing more than the evolution of United Fruit Company, American multinational known for its raw interventions in Latin American political life in the first half of the 20th century – it is precisely the expression of expression “Bananas”.

Historians have pointed out that it was involved, inter alia, in the military coup against Hakobo Arbens in Guatemala in 1954 and the slaughter of strikers in her plantations in Colombia with over a thousand dead in 1928.