CALI DRUG BOSS'S RELEASE STUNS U.S.

TUNJA, Colombia -- A former drug kingpin was freed late Thursday night
after serving only half his sentence, despite U.S. efforts to find evidence
to support further charges -- and possibly his extradition to the United
States.

Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, who with his brother Miguel once controlled
the Cali drug cartel, an empire that moved multi-ton shipments of cocaine
across the globe, walked out of prison shortly after 10 p.m.

Rodriguez, who was arrested in 1995 and sentenced to prison until 2010, was
ordered released by Judge Pedro Suarez last week for good behavior and
participation in a prison work-study program. As the government
investigated Suarez to see if the convicted drug trafficker might have
bribed him -- a charge that Suarez has denied -- another judge upheld his
decision Thursday.

Tensions mounted throughout the day Thursday amid expectations that
Rodriguez might be freed.

Dozens of police and soldiers had surrounded the prison where he was held,
outside the town of Tunja 60 miles northeast of Bogota, to prevent any
violence.

With the clock ticking, U.S. officials tried in vain to stop his release.

"Some documents have arrived from the United States that officials are
evaluating, and that could stop the release," President Alvaro Uribe's
spokesman, Ricardo Galan, told the Associated Press.

Details on what information was being provided were not immediately
available, but U.S. drug agents have been trying to link Rodriguez and his
jailed brother to international crimes committed after 1997, when
Colombia's constitution was revised to allow the extradition of its citizens.

Suarez's decision last week that the Rodriguez brothers should be freed
shocked the nation and prompted the president to intervene. But Judge Luz
Amanda Moncada ruled Thursday that Suarez's order on Gilberto Rodriguez
should stand. She also ordered an investigation of the government for
allegedly interfering in the judicial process.

Interior and Justice Minister Fernando Londono called the ruling a
"terrible blow."

"This is a moment of mourning and pain for the country's image and for the
administration of justice in Colombia," Londono said, but nonetheless added
that the administration would respect the decision.

Moncada also ruled that Miguel Rodriguez must remain in prison to serve an
additional four-year sentence for a bribery charge, which reportedly
stemmed from a 1996 attempt to buy his way out of prison.

The Cali drug cartel once controlled 80 percent of the world's cocaine
trade. It became the world's most powerful drug gang after the demise of
the Medellin cartel, whose leader, Pablo Escobar, was killed by police in
December 1993.

While the Medellin cartel was ultraviolent, killing scores of police,
judges, journalists and top government officials in bombings and by hit men
in an attempt to force Colombia to bar extraditions, the Cali cartel ran
the drug business more like a corporation -- although one that did not
hesitate to kill.

U.S. officials in Bogota criticized the rulings that put Gilberto Rodriguez
on the brink of freedom.

"We really lament the decision," U.S. Embassy economic counselor Francisco
Fernandez said in Bogota on Thursday. "But we understand that ... the
government did everything possible to try and avoid this."

Authorities believe that all the top leaders of the Cali cartel have been
jailed or killed, yet remnants of the drug operation still exist in Cali,
Colombia's third-largest city, 185 miles southwest of Bogota.

U.S. authorities believe William Rodriguez, 37, a lawyer and the son of
Miguel Rodriguez, may be one of the new drug leaders in Cali. In August,
the United States requested his extradition.