COLOMBIA'S HIGH COURT APPROVES EXTRADITION OF FORMER DRUG LEADER

BOGOTA, Colombia - Colombia's Supreme Court ruled today that a former
leader of the Medellin cocaine cartel can be extradited to the United
States, a blow to his family's high-profile effort to prevent him from
facing charges overseas.

The court ruled that Fabio Ochoa, 44, who with his brothers helped run a
cocaine empire estimated to be worth $1 billion, could be extradited to
Florida to face drug smuggling charges from a 1999 case. President Andres
Pastrana is expected to approve the decision.

The extradition would be the most significant of a Colombian drug suspect
in more than a decade, when the country's security forces were locked in a
violent struggle to take apart the cartel and its principal leader, Pablo
Escobar. Mr. Escobar, who carried out a lethal terrorist campaign, was shot
dead by police in 1993.

Mr. Ochoa, along with his brothers, Jorge Luis and Juan David, surrendered
to authorities in 1990 after the government promised the men they would not
be extradited. Instead, the brothers served short jail terms.

But American officials said that after his release, Fabio Ochoa became
involved in a drug syndicate that shipped 20 to 30 tons of cocaine each
month to the United States and Europe. He was arrested in 1999, and is
being held in prison.

His siblings angrily deny the charges, arguing that the United States is
seeking his extradition for crimes committed in the 1980's.

"He turned himself in, and the state signed a pact with us saying that if
we committed a crime we would be extradited, but we have not committed a
crime," Jorge Ochoa, now a rancher, said in a telephone interview this evening.

Fabio Ochoa's relatives have started a public relations campaign to free
him, featuring billboards, fliers passed and a Web site. The billboards,
displaying his face, read: "Yesterday, I made a mistake. Today I am innocent."

Extradition, outlawed a decade ago, was reinstated in 1997. The crimes must
have been committed after that date.