MOSCOW, March 12: A Russian court has approved the extradition to Colombia of an Israeli mercenary wanted by Colombian authorities for allegedly training guerillas, a spokeswoman for the court said on Wednesday.

“Moscow’s city court has approved a decision by the prosecutor general’s office on the extradition of (Yair) Klein to Colombia,” spokeswoman Anna Usachyova said.

Usachyova said that Klein had 10 days to appeal the ruling, which was made on Tuesday.

Klein, a former Israeli army officer, was arrested at a Moscow airport last August as he was about to board a flight to Israel.

He was previously sentenced to 10 years in Colombia for training paramilitary gangs on behalf of drug cartels during the 1980s.

Colombia’s paramilitary groups were organised as private armies in the 1980s, ostensibly to protect landholders from leftist guerillas who were extorting “war taxes.”

More than 3,000 people died in fighting involving the paramilitary groups, including four candidates in the 1990 presidential election.—AFP