Two Colombians on Thursday were sentenced in Miami federal court to 35 and 30 years in prison for conspiring to murder U.S. soldiers in a car-bombing attack at a military base near the Colombia– Venezuela border.
Three U.S. Army members were injured in the 2021 assault.
Andres Fernando Medina Rodriguez, a former Colombian military officer aided by an associate, planted a bomb in a vehicle to kill members of the U.S. Army who were working with soldiers in the South American country, according to court records.
Medina Rodriguez, 40, received the longer sentence, and Ciro Alfonso Gutierrez Ballesteros, 32, got the shorter term before U.S. District Judge Roy Altman in Miami federal court.
Both were charged in a five-count terrorism-related indictment filed in 2022. Earlier this year, they pleaded guilty to conspiring and attempting to murder members of the First Security Assistance Brigade, part of the U.S. Uniformed Services. The charges carried up to life in prison.
U.S. soldiers at Colombian Army base
According to the indictment, Medina Rodriguez planned a bombing attack with Gutierrez Ballesteros and others against the U.S. Army soldiers stationed at the Colombian 30th Army Brigade Base in Cucuta, Colombia, in 2021.
Medina Rodriguez used his status as a medically discharged Colombian Army officer to gain access to the base where he conducted surveillance, according to federal prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Justice…
