Describe what the son of Pablo Escobar think of him?

My father, Pablo Escobar, the most notorious drug lord in history
The only son of Pablo Escobar is finally coming to terms with his father’s violent legacy
Brian Byrnes
Sebastián Marroquín finally feels free. As the only son of the most famous drug lord in history, he has spent the past 17 years hiding his identity — until now.

After his father died in a hail of bullets in Medellín in 1993, the boy christened Juan Pablo fled Colombia with his mother and sister, changed his name to Sebastián Marroquín and eventually settled in Argentina, where he now makes an honest living as an architect. These days, he is a man troubled by the anguish his father caused to millions but one who is working hard to right the past. It has only been in recent months that he has started speaking publicly about the Escobar family’s violent, cocaine clouded legacy.

“I feel as if I’ve been unleashed and now I can begin to enjoy life,” Marroquín says over decaffeinated coffee and croissants at a café near his apartment in Buenos Aires.

The catalyst for his catharsis is My Father, Pablo Escobar, the gripping documentary that traces Marroquín’s journey of reconciliation with the sons of two of Escobar’s most famous victims. The film is already one of the most successful Spanish-language documentaries of all time and has enjoyed sold-out screenings at movie festivals such as Sundance and Amsterdam. It make its premiere on UK screens on More4’s True Stories at 10pm tonight.

“The gift that the film has given me and my family is that the world now sees us with different eyes. Some of the prejudices against the Escobar family have finally disappeared,” says the 33-year-old, whose resemblance to his late father is striking: a beefy frame topped by a curly-haired head offset by puffy cheeks, a double chin and deep-set black eyes. All that is missing is the moustache.

“To be a relative is not the same as being an accomplice. You can’t choose your relatives,” he says.

Pablo Escobar gained notoriety in the 1980s as the planet’s most successful coke peddler, building a billion-dollar global cartel responsible for up to 80 per cent of the world’s cocaine market. As his power and net worth grew — Forbes ranked him as the world’s 7th richest man in 1989 — Escobar applied increasing deadly pressure on those who tried to topple his empire, namely government officials, journalists and rival dealers. Thousands died on his orders: torture, drive-by shootings and car bombs were his favourite methods of doling out death. Despite the gruesome tactics he employed in eliminating his enemies, Escobar remains a hero to many Colombians, a modern-day Robin Hood who showered millions on Medellín’s poor.

All 90 minutes of the documentary are riveting. The film mixes never-seen-before home videos of the Escobar family with old TV news clips and fresh footage of Marroquín and his mother, now known as Maria Isabel Santos Caballero. Together they provide a chilling narrative of Colombia’s violence in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as a poignant account of a conflicted man whose entire existence was dictated by his father’s murderous ways.

Since the premiere of the documentary in Argentina in November last year, Marroquín has been on a hectic promotional tour in Latin America and Europe. Naturally, he says, the most important stop so far has been Colombia, where the film was viewed as a watershed cultural event, and a homecoming of sorts for one of its most notorious sons. Thirty prints of the film were ordered, unprecedented for a documentary in Colombia, and although he was widely praised for his decision to ask the country’s forgiveness in the film, harsh criticism abounded when he visited in December. Marroquín says he was quickly reminded that his father’s vicious actions still provoke raw emotions in Colombians from all walks of life.

“I hope all Colombian people understand the film and we can help to stop the violence once and for all. My only conviction is for this film to be a message of peace. Nothing more, nothing less,” he says.

Escobar was a ruthless, some say, psychotic, killer. For Marroquín, he was a loving father who doted on his children. Marroquín recalls sharing many tender moments with him, especially at the family’s sprawling Hacienda Nápoles estate, where Escobar created a world-class zoo stocked with exotic animals. There were also dozens of speedboats, jet-skis and motorcycles, which Marroquín learnt how to handle at an early age.

“I knew how to drive by the time I was 5 and how to shoot a gun at the age of 7. I took self-defence classes too, to be prepared for any situation,” he says.

Before Escobar’s outlaw status prevented him from leaving Colombia, the family travelled abroad often, staying at posh hotels in Venice and glitzy high rises on Miami Beach. Disney World was a favourite, too, although Escobar was terrified of rollercoasters. One of Marroquín’s fondest memories was a visit to Washington DC where father and son posed for a photo in front of the White House, and where Escobar used a fake ID to get inside the FBI Museum. “I remember my father got a big chuckle out of being able to sneak inside there,” he says.

Marroquín and his mother came to London in 1988 and saw all the local sights, none of which particularly impressed him at the time. “I was only 11, so I wasn’t that interested in seeing Big Ben,” he says. “I remember thinking that London was too cold for anyone to live in. But I hope to visit again.”

Marroquín was a well-travelled child, with every toy in the world, but his luxurious lifestyle was also unbearably lonely at times. Most Colombians were terrified of Escobar, which made it tough for young Marroquín to make friends. His closest confidants were his bodyguards. “I had 30 motorbikes, but I couldn’t go outside to ride them. How’s that for irony,” he says. “Now that I don’t have any of those luxuries, I feel like a millionaire, because I have my freedom.”

In the film we see images of the Escobars temporarily retreating to Panama and Nicaragua, and unsuccessfully seeking asylum in the US and Germany in 1993. Later, we hear the chilling intercepted phone conversation between father and son that tipped off US and Colombian intelligence officers to Escobar’s whereabouts. Rather than surrender, he stormed from his safehouse with guns blazing and was killed by a barrage of police bullets.

When he heard of his father’s death, 16-year-old Marroquín lashed out on local radio, vowing to avenge it. He quickly recanted his remarks and asked that his family finally be allowed to live in peace. The family then spent two difficult and dangerous years trying to avoid prison and death, travelling throughout South America and Africa looking for a home before finally being accepted in Argentina.

“I didn’t think I would live to be 17,” he says. “Now, reflecting on it, I feel that since the day my father died until today, every hour that I live is a bonus.”

Dozens of film-makers had approached Marroquín about telling his life story. He declined, thinking they would only glorify and exploit his father’s image, something that he was loath to do. Although he loved his father, Marroquín has repeatedly denounced him and the drug trade. He has spent the past 15 years trying to live a quiet life in Argentina. In 1999, his past caught up with him, when he and his mother were jailed in Buenos Aires on money-laundering allegations brought by a spurned former lover of Maria Isabel’s. The charges were eventually dropped, but not before Marroquín had spent 45 days in prison, and his mother 20 months. It’s an experience that still annoys him. “We were kept in jail for small and false charges because we were Colombians. And because we were family members of Pablo Escobar. It was a disgrace,” he says.

It wasn’t until he met Nicolas Entel, the film-maker, in 2005 that he first considered breaking his silence. The young Argentinian director suggested a novel approach: bringing Marroquín together with the sons of the former Colombian Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla and the former Colombian presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán, both killed on orders from Escobar after confronting him.

“I was proposing to tell the story from the point of view of the sons, and Sebastián liked that,” Entel, 34, says. “What motivated me was that Marroquín, me and the sons of Lara and Galán are all around the same age. I felt we would find a way to connect because of our similar cultures, values and experiences,” he says.

The film slowly builds to its theme, juxtaposing interviews with Marroquín and Lara speaking stoically about their dead fathers. The two most riveting scenes occur when Marroquín meets Lara and then Galán’s three sons, all four of whom have chosen to carry on their fathers’ legacies and enter politics. Meeting secretly on an island in the Río de la Plata in Argentina, Marroquín and Lara sit on a bench and have a frank but cordial talk. Marroquín notes that they are “both orphans.” Lara thanks him for his “heartfelt” letter of apology. “We are both good and peaceful men. Let’s move forward,” Lara says as they embrace.

The meeting with Galán’s three sons is raw. Returning to Colombia for the first time in 15 years, Marroquín nervously asks for their forgiveness. The Galán brothers express their gratitude, but ultimately say they cannot forgive him for sins he did not commit. Marroquín recalls thinking they would sit down and have a coffee and chat before recording.

“Nicolas wouldn’t allow it. He insisted that we show from the very first moments of our meeting exactly as it happened. And I think that is one of the best aspects of this film: nothing was manipulated. It is all real,” he says.

In the coming months, Marroquín will make appearances at film festivals in Poland, Ecuador, Canada and Germany. One place he will not be visiting, though, is the US. During Pablo Escobar’s reign of terror, the US Government spent millions of dollars trying to stem the flow of cocaine from Colombian jungles to American alleyways. It’s a fight that Washington continues to wage. Consequently, Marroquín says, his US visa application has so far been denied.

“It has been wonderful to travel the world again, but it is a big paradox too, because before nobody would welcome us anywhere, and now we are getting invited everywhere. Well, almost everywhere,” he says with a smile.

In June, Marroquín will visit the Munich Film Festival. It will be the first time he has been to Germany since 1993, when he, his mother, sister and future-wife applied for asylum there, while Escobar was still on the lam in Colombia. The Escobars spent a long and tense day at Frankfurt airport, before ultimately being sent back to Bogotá. Escobar died just days later.

“I feel that this invitation from Germany is a way to clean the slate and reconcile for the way we were treated in the past. I think it is a great gesture,” Marroquín says.

Argentina is now his family’s home. Marroquín and his wife live in the fashionable Palermo neighborhood and his mother and sister live near by. His architecture studio is busy designing and building upper-class homes in suburban Buenos Aires and a downtown office building. He rules out any chance of ever returning to live in Colombia. “I feel that I can make more of a difference from outside Colombia than from inside,” he says. At the recent Buenos Aires premiere, Marroquín did interviews with a dozen local television stations, patiently answering the same questions over and over. Later, as Entel welcomed the standing-room only crowd, Marroquín retreated behind a concrete column shielding himself from the audience’s glare.

Despite the relief he has experienced telling his life story on screen, he still does not like the attention. “I don’t feel comfortable with the spotlight on me. But it is part of the process.”

Marroquín is now planning to publish his memoirs, which he says will allow him to reveal even more important family secrets, and expand his message of peace.

“I want to form my own identity. The film has allowed me to start doing that. I don’t want just to be known as ‘The Son of Pablo Escobar’,” he says. “I want to be known as my own man.”