A 52-year-old Colombia man who has killed nothing less than 300 persons, released.

CNN) -- John Jairo Velasquez -- the top hit man for notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar in the '80s, known in Colombia as the "narcoterrorism era" -- is a free man for the first time in 22 years.

The 52-year-old Velasquez, also known as "Popeye," was released Tuesday night from a maximum-security prison in the Colombian province of Boyaca, northeast of Bogota, the capital. He left the prison under heavy police protection.

Velasquez surrendered to authorities in 1992, telling a reporter at the time, "I don't owe anything to anybody. I haven't done anything wrong."

But in jailhouse interviews, he admitted several times to killing about 300 people, including soldiers, police officers, rival cartel members and civilians. He also confessed to masterminding the killings of more than 3,000 other people, most of them civilians.

Velasquez was also responsible for a number of high-profile kidnappings.

"The debate about his release has been centered on the fact that Colombians claim to respect the rule of law, and we abide by the constitution, even in those cases where we are in disagreement with the consequences of some decisions," Benedetti said.