I think it's a myth that one cannot leave any organization once you've entered one.

My whole life I saw how the violence my father created had come back to my family and I thought that I would only make things worse for my mother and my sister if I sought to avenge my father. I had to dare to take a path of peace.

I think [Pablo Escobar] wasted an incredibly opportunity which was when he stayed at the prison he made, La Catedral. It was the one chance that the government and the people of Colombia gave him to confess his illicit activities and to remain in one place with very favorable conditions.

For every stone that [Pablo Escobar] threw, he would get many thrown back at him and us, his family, because we were the most vulnerable. In these types of extreme situations, we learned about the consequences of violence and that is why we did not go down the same path.

What I criticize is the message that the United States is sending to the youth of the world - to those of us who invite people to leave the ways of violence and the drug trade, we are not given a visa but those that sell drugs and weapons, yes.

It's a shame to see drug dealers enter and leave the United States as if nothing in addition to those that purchase weapons and firearms.

I am a free man but only partially so relative to other people in society. Why do I say "partially free"? Because there is only one country in the world that denies me entrance because of who my father was and that is the United States.