The Cathedral, Pablo Escobar’s former luxury jail, will be turned into an elderly home, Spanish press agency EFE reported Tuesday.
What used to be Colombia’s most luxurious prison — It was often referred to as Hotel Escobar or Club Medellin — has been empty for 20 years after Colombia’s most famous drug lord fled captivity in 1992.
The building was ransacked by locals until the rival of a number of Benedict monks in 2007 who turns parts of the old jail into a chapel and constructed a commemorative wall dedicated to Escobar’s victims.
The wall reads, “He who doesn’t know his history is condemned to repeating it.”
The monks, who regularly religious locals and curious tourists, now want to turn the jail-turned-religious center into an elderly home.
This home should be ready to receive locals from the town of Envigado, from where Escobar reigned, in September.
“The home will be for people with little resources or disabled,” monk Elkin Velez told the press agency, adding that the monks have begun studying geriatrics and medicine to be able to take care of their guests.
The original inhabitant of the worn-down building was killed on a Medellin rooftop in December 1993, a year and a half after the army, the DEA and the paramilitary group “Los Pepes” began a manhunt for Colombia’s most famous citizen.
