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OUTRAGED Colombians are calling for the United States to extradite banana executives after the Cincinnati-based fruit giant Chiquita acknowledged making monthly protection payments for six years to illegal groups that killed thousands of people.
The chief federal prosecutor's office said today it would ask the US Justice Department for information on Chiquita's role in smuggling 3,000 assault rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition to far-right paramilitaries in the region where the company got its bananas.
Chiquita settled a US Justice Department probe by agreeing to pay a $25m (Euro18.95m) fine and acknowledging that its wholly owned subsidiary Banadex paid $1.7m dollars (Euro1.3m) to far-right paramilitaries labelled terrorists by the United States.
Chiquita also admitted funding Colombia's two main leftist rebel groups, but the US complaint offered no information about how much it paid them.
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YOU ARE HERE: 11 November 2007 / tribune.ie / 2007 / 03 / 18
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