After killing Escobar, the Cali cartel wanted his head to be ripped off and displayed as a trophy.
Long before his death in 1993, drug lord Pablo Escobar, who was the leader of the Medellín cartel, was besieged by death.
Peter McAleese was the hit man hired in 1989 to assassinate the world’s most wanted drug lord. McAleese and a team of British mercenaries traveled to Colombia, apparently on commission from the Cali cartel.
The Scottish hitman tells his story in a documentary created by David Whitney, Killing Escobar. The mercenary was a former agent in the British Army Special Air Service, where he served until 1969.
“I was trained to kill by the Army but the fighting instinct came from Glasgow, I left the city I joined the Army at 17 to find a way to channel my aggressiveness, I enlisted in the Parachute regiment and then became a member. of the 22nd SAS regiment, ”explains McAleese in the documentary, according to Infobae.
After leaving the Army, McAleese reports that his aggressive nature increased as he felt lonely and regretted the “worst decision” he made. The man was jailed shortly thereafter for assaulting his girlfriend and getting out of jail. He began working as a hitman in the civil war in Angola, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
During his time in Angola, McAleese met Dave Tomkins, another mercenary who had been hired by Jorge Salcedo, a member of the Cali cartel, to form a British team to carry out the mission of assassinating Pablo Escobar.
“They don’t ask you to kill Pablo Escobar unless you have the required experience, he had no moral conflicts about killing him. I have never considered it as murder. I’ve seen it as a target, ”McAleese recounted about his encounter with Tomkins in 1976.
The 12 members of the Tomkins team arrived in Colombia, where the Cali cartel took responsibility for financing his stay in the country. Each of the men would receive $ 5,000 a month, with the exception of McAleese, who earned $ 1,000 a day.
“It was like Christmas. Everything we needed in terms of weapons was there, we all worked hard and trained for combat, but only Tomkins and I knew that the target was Pablo Escobar.… when we confessed that we were actually in Colombia to kill the most dangerous man in the world, one of the members of the group decided to go home. “, says the Scottish hitman in the documentary.
Head as a trophy
The murder plan would take place at the Hacienda Napoles, where Escobar resided with his family. The British team would take two helicopters to reach the ranch, where their first objective would be to breach the rigorous security of the drug trafficker. After killing Escobar, the Cali cartel wanted his head to be ripped off and displayed as a trophy.
However, the helicopters carrying the mercenaries never reached their objective. McAleese and Tomkins’ transport crashed into the Andes Mountains. The pilot died in the accident, but the rest of the men were able to escape, leaving the wounded McAleese abandoned for three days on the mountain.
Worried about Escobar’s men, who had already found out about the operation and were looking for the British mercenaries, McAleese managed to escape into the jungle.
“If Pablo had caught me, I would have had a long, prolonged and painful death, instead I escaped and tried to fulfill the promises I made to God while I was lying on the side of the mountain, I was a dirty man , shameless; a trash. I had to live that to change, “he said McAleese, who says that after arriving home he rehabilitated and put aside his life as a murderer. (I)
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