The First Criminal Court of Medellín sentenced Mario Felipe Usman Álvarez to 25 years in prison after confessing to the murder of the 65-year-old Óscar Ignacio Calle Pérez in 2014.
Usman faced charges of aggravated murder, aggravated theft, the illegal bearing of a firearm and conspiracy to commit murder. He was found guilty on March 28th while at the Picaleña de Ibagué, Tolima prison serving a sentence for another crime.
The murder occurred on the morning of September 23rd, 2014, when the victim was shot in the head while he was traveling to the church. Afterward, a bag containing four million Colombian pesos was stolen from him by his attackers.
According to the facts provided by the prosecutor, María Mirelly Quintero Cardona, the wife of the victim, hired his nephew, David Arias Quintero, to kill her husband and collect a 143 million peso (US $48,000) life insurance policy. Rather than carry out the murder himself, Quintero’s nephew hired friends John Alexander Foronda, Jonathan Estiven Arango, and Mario Felipe Usman money from the stolen bag to help him commit the crime.
For their respective responsibilities in the crimes, and after an agreement with the prosecutor’s office, David Arias Quintero and Jonathan Estiven were each sentenced to 16 years in prison, while John Alexander Foronda was sentenced to 9 years and 6 months in prison and María Quintero to 14 years in prison. Mario Usman, was sentenced to 19 years in prison adding this on to the time he was serving for another murder committed in 2015.
