Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's Arturo Wallace in Bogota says opinion in Colombia is divided over the prisoner's early release 
 
 One of Colombia's most notorious hired killers has been released from prison after serving 22 years of a 30-year sentence. 
 
 Jhon Jairo Velasquez, nicknamed Popeye, was the top hit man of late Colombian drug baron Pablo Escobar. 
 
 He confessed to killing 300 people and also claimed a hand in up to 3,000 killings in the 1980s and 1990s. 
 
 But he also gave evidence against an ex-justice minister convicted of ordering the killing of a rival. 
 
 Velasquez, 52, walked free from the Combita high-security prison on Tuesday to start a probation period of four years. 
 
 He left under heavy police escort, a sign of the risks he believes he will face outside jail. 
 
 Image copyright EPA Image caption There was heavy security at the entrance to Combita prison when Velasquez was released 
 
 Image copyright AFP Image caption Jhon Jairo Velasquez was Pablo Escobar's most notorious hit man 
 
 The BBC's Arturo Wallace in Bogota says Colombia is divided over his early release. 
 
 Several victims insist he still hasn't paid for all his crimes, while others say that after two decades in jail it is time to give him a second chance, our correspondent says. 
 
 Velasquez was convicted for his part in the murder of presidential hopeful Luis Carlos Galan in 1989. 
 
 But he later turned state's witness against former Justice Minister Alberto Santofimio, a rival candidate in the 1990 presidential election, who was convicted of ordering Mr Galan's killing. 
 
 Mr Galan had taken a hard line against powerful drug cartels and was favourite to win the election, but he was was shot dead in a town outside Bogota as he prepared to give a speech. 
 
 Santofimio, now serving a 24-year sentence, was a close associate of Escobar - the founder of the Medellin cartel which was engaged in a war against the Colombian state. ||||| John Jairo Velásquez, who ordered the deaths of thousands in Colombia, has upset victims’ relatives, though he says his channel aims to discourage crime 
 
 During his time as Pablo Escobar’s most feared enforcer, the man known as Popeye killed around 300 people, ordered the murder of thousands more, and masterminded some 200 car bombs during the Medellín cartel’s war against its rivals and the Colombian state. 
 
 Now, after more than two decades in prison, John Jairo Velásquez is attempting to recast himself as a YouTube star. 
 
 Through his channel Popeye Arrepentido (Remorseful Popeye), Velásquez says he is trying to warn young people away from a life of crime – but his newfound celebrity has caused distress and offence to some relatives of his victims. 
 
 Pedal power in Pablo Escobar's former stronghold – in pictures Read more 
 
 Paroled in 2014 after 22 years in prison, Velásquez started his YouTube channel earlier this year at the suggestion of a friend. “From one moment to the next I had 1,000 followers, then 2,000,” he says, in a telephone interview from Medellín. 
 
 Nine months later, his channel has more than 100,000 subscribers: some way behind the site’s biggest stars, who count their followers by the million, but enough, he says, to earn a modest income. 
 
 His video posts open with a with slow motion shot of a flying bullet. “It may seem like an glorifying crime but it’s to attract young people,” says the man whose confessed crimes include ordering the bombing of a commercial airliner in which 110 people died. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Pablo Escobar with John Jairo Velásquez, known as Popeye. Photograph: Facebook 
 
 “There is a certain degree of morbid curiosity about the killings, especially from young people,” he admits. 
 
 
 
 Although Velásquez was only convicted over one murder – the 1989 assassination of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán – he has claimed responsibility for thousands of deaths, including some those of about 500 policemen who were shot in return for a cartel bounty. 
 
 In one posting, the brother of a murdered police officer asks Velásquez when he will meet the families of his victims. “That’s a painful question for me,” Velásquez answers. “It’s important that we could meet so I can ask for your forgiveness face to face and accept my responsibility.” 
 
 Velásquez claims he dedicates 14 hours a day answering questions sent to him, recording new posts and fielding questions from researchers into the underworld. 
 
 He still refers to Escobar as “my boss”, although at the start of one post in which he recounts the capo’s life, he offers a disclaimer: “Before I start I want to say that everything Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria did was bad. It’s important that new generations don’t get fixated on the figure of Pablo Escobar and even less on mine. We should not be a model for anyone. We are bandits.” 
 
 Velásquez’s most widely seen post is a rant against Diosdado Cabello, a former speaker of the Venezuela legislature, entitled From Bandit to Bandit, which has more than 751,000 views. In it he unleashes sharp criticism against Cabello and the Venezuelan government. 
 
 Some of those who suffered Popeye’s crimes are troubled by his newfound celebrity. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest A screen shot from John Jairo Velásquez’s YouTube channel. Photograph: Youtube 
 
 Gonzálo Rojas, whose father was on board Avianca flight 203 when it was destroyed by a cartel bomb, sees the former hit man’s YouTube channel as an affront to all his victims. 
 
 “It’s a slap in the face for us for him to present himself now as an expert, a consultant, when he hasn’t shown any remorse for what he did to us,” says Rojas, who adds that when he tried to approach Popeye to seek some answers, he was told to talk to his “manager”. 
 
 “He’s become a celebrity because of his crimes,” Rojas says, 
 
 Velásquez, who at the height of his power was paid as much as $1m for a high-profile murder, says he squandered much of his fortune on protection payments while in prison. What’s left he has had to deposit into an account through a front man because no bank will open an account for him. 
 
 
 
 With the YouTube channel, he hopes to make a living. “It would be clean money from honest work,” he says.
– The Colombian hit man known as "Popeye" has been freed from prison after 22 years—which works out to around 27 days for each of the 300 people he has admitted killing. John Jairo Velasquez was the chief assassin for drug lord Pablo Escobar and is believed to have had a role in thousands of killings on top of the ones for which he was imprisoned. He was freed early from his 30-year sentence after giving evidence against other criminals, and Colombia is divided on whether he deserves a second chance in society, the BBC reports. The 52-year-old—who murdered his own girlfriend on Escobar's orders—is believed to have been involved in the 1989 killing of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán, the kidnapping of future President Andres Pastrana, and the bombing of an Avianca flight, which killed all 107 people on board, Reuters reports. He left prison in Bogota under heavy police guard yesterday and will be on probation for the next four years. But although his testimony against others means he is now a target for hit men himself, it's not clear whether he will be receiving ongoing protection. (Another legacy from Escobar's time as cartel boss: a herd of hippos breeding out of control.)