MEXICO AGREES TO EXTRADITE DRUG SUSPECT TO CALIFORNIA

MEXICO CITY, Jan. 18 - Mexico's Supreme Court ruled tonight that a Mexican
citizen charged as a cocaine kingpin in a United States court could be
extradicted to California, a precedent-setting decision long sought by
American authorities.

The case of the trafficker, Arturo Paez Martinez, who was charged in a
federal indictment in San Diego with smuggling more than 2,200 pounds of
cocaine into the United States, was seen on both sides of the border as a
test of Mexico's willingness to extradite people accused of drug trafficking
to face American justice. In a companion ruling, the court said a reputed
lieutenant in another drug cartel, Oscar Malherbe de Leon, could also be
extradited to the United States.

"This decision sets a new precedent," said Gabriela Rodriguez Huerta, a
professor of international law at the Autonomous Technical Institute of
Mexico.

"The Supreme Court had maintained the practice of judging Mexicans on
Mexican territory," she said. "It had upheld the precedent of not judging
Mexicans overseas. What they've done now is to change their stance, verring
from the interpretation they had maintained for years  that they would not
proceed with the extradition of Mexicans, perhaps for political reasons."

United States officials have sought for years, with decidedly mixed results,
to persuade Mexican authorities to extradite Mexican citizens charged with
crimes by American grand juries. But Mexico's courts have split on the issue
in criminal cases, and tonight's 10-to-1 decision in the Paez and Malherbe
cases was the first clear sign from the Supreme Court that Mexico's laws and
traditions permitted it.

The issue has been a major irritant in relations between Mexico and the
United States, who have an extradition treaty that has proved unsatisfying
to American authorities.

American officials have said that Mexico has failed to arrest and extradite
dozens of Mexican drug traffickers charged in American courts. Some have
suggested that corrupt Mexican officials, paid to protect smuggling, have
deliberately botched cases and blocked extraditions for fear that drug
traffickers might testify against them.

But Mexico's Constitution emphasizes the sovereignty of the state, and some
Mexican authorities have said that United States law enforcement officials
have at times acted like swaggering vigilantes, meddling in foreign
territory.

Tonight's decision appears, for the moment, to have the power to soothe that
irritation.

Gina Talamon, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, said this evening in
Washington that the decision to extradite Mr. Paez to California "would be
good news for our extradition relationship."

"We look forward to reviewing this decision," she added.

Mr. Paez, who is in his mid-30's, was arrested outside a shopping mall in
Tijuana in November 1997. He was a target of a major criminal investigation
led by United States authorities against the the Tijuana-based drug
organization run by the Arellano Felix brothers. United States authorities
said he was a member of a 10-man council that served as the organization's
board of directors.

Mr. Malherbe was indicted in the United States in 1990 and charged as a
chief lieutenant in the drug cartel led by Juan Garcia Abrego. He was
arrested in Mexico City in February 1997, the day before the White House
made its annual announcement certifying that Mexico was a trusted ally in
the drug war.

Mexico has traditionally been at best reluctant to extradite Mexican
citizens facing drug charges only in the United States. The extradition
issue has been snarled in Mexico's courts for decades, and treaties and
protocols between the United States and Mexico have done little to unravel
it.

For example, even if Mexico agrees to extradite its own citizens in criminal
cases, they can be sent across the border only after being tried and serving
any sentence they may face in Mexico, making prosecutions and convictions in
the United States difficult or impossible.