COLOMBIA EXTRADITES 1980'S TRAFFICKER TO U.S. TO FACE DRUG CHARGES

BOGOTA, Colombia, Sept. 7 -- Fabio Ochoa, who in the 1980's helped run a
cocaine empire that terrorized Colombia with a wave of bombings and
assassinations, was extradited to the United States tonight to face federal
drug trafficking charges.

Manacled and under heavy guard, Mr. Ochoa, 44, was placed aboard a Drug
Enforcement Administration plane about 9 p.m. and flown to Miami, after his
family members failed in their high-priced quest to stop the Colombian
government from complying with an American extradition request.

Since Mr. Ochoa's arrest in October 1999, his siblings resorted to a series
of court appeals and a high-profile public relations campaign aimed at
convincing Colombians of his innocence. But President Andres Pastrana
approved a court-ordered extradition two weeks ago, and on Thursday the
Ministry of Justice ordered that Mr. Ochoa be sent to the United States.

To Colombian and American officials, the extradition is seen as a victory
for justice, since Mr. Ochoa has long been considered a powerful trafficker
whose association in the 1980's with Pablo Escobar, leader of the Medellin
drug cartel, led to hundreds of deaths.

"His greed and ruthless behavior are unsurpassed, even among the most
notorious drug traffickers of the cartel era," said Asa Hutchinson, the new
head of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

In Colombia, though, many see Mr. Ochoa and his two brothers, Jorge and
Juan David, as educated, sophisticated rogues. "Everyone loves us; the
doors open for us all over," Juan David Ochoa said in an interview today at
the family's horse-breeding farm in Medellin. "Unfortunately, in a bad time
and bad hour, when we were younger, we got into that business."

The image of a generally honest family that went astray gathered momentum
after December 1990, when Fabio Ochoa surrendered to the authorities while
Mr. Escobar, escalating his war to avoid extradition, bombed shopping
centers and assassinated presidential candidates, judges and policemen. Mr.
Ochoa's brothers surrendered soon after, under a government decree that
promised that they could not be extradited for their 1980's crimes. Mr.
Escobar was shot dead by the police in 1993, marking the end of the
Medellin cartel.

"They're in some ways less daring and violent than Escobar, a little more
shrewd, a little smarter," said Mark Bowden, author of "Killing Pablo"
(Atlantic Monthly Press Monthly, 2001), about the hunt for Mr. Escobar. "I
think they realized fairly early on that if the United States and the
government of Colombia were determined to come after them, nothing good was
going to come of that."

Fabio Ochoa's family, affluent and well-known horse breeders, argued that
the American government wanted to extradite him for crimes for which he has
already served time, a violation of a 1997 law that permits extradition.
The family also insisted that he was innocent of the new charges, which
stem from a 1999 operation that led to the arrests of 31 people in Mexico
and Colombia.

To convince the public and influence public officials, the family started a
Web site, dropped leaflets in packed soccer stadiums and put up billboards
that featured Fabio Ochoa's likeness with the message, "Yesterday I made a
mistake; today I am innocent."

In an advertisement that ran recently in the newspaper El Tiempo of Bogota,
Mr. Ochoa had this message for Mr. Pastrana: "I surrendered to justice with
the guarantee I would not be extradited. I have complied. You must comply."

They also filed 14 appeals, including one in which Mr. Ochoa's youngest
daughter claims that the family has a right to remain united. "These
appeals were filed to show that when a person commits an error, like my
brother did, but admits what they did, then he has a right to vindicate
himself," said Marta Nieves Ochoa, Mr. Ochoa's sister.

Colombian and American officials, however, say that after serving a short
prison term after his 1990 surrender, Mr. Ochoa returned to trafficking. A
federal grand jury in South Florida accused him and several others of
shipping tons of cocaine to the United States from 1997 to 1999.

"He stayed involved in drug trafficking, even beyond the 1997 extradition
law, and that's what he's been charged with," said Joseph D. Keefe, the
Drug Enforcement Administration's chief of operations. "He wants the public
down there to think he's being tried for charges that he's served time for.
To me, that's a publicity stunt."

In Colombia, though, many people believe the Ochoa family's claims. Indeed,
on the streets of Bogota, it is easy to find support for Mr. Ochoa and his
family.

"The Ochoas break the stereotype," said Sandra Milena Abello, 33, who works
in a public relations firm. "The family is educated; they have class; they
are a family that seems unable to hurt other people."

Luis Humberto Silva, 38, a business manager, said he thought that Mr. Ochoa
"should not have to pay once more for crimes that he already paid for."