FORMER COCAINE CARTEL LEADER FREED BY JUDGE'S ORDER

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

Gilberto Rodriguez, who with his brother Miguel once controlled the Cali
drug cartel, an empire that moved shipments of tons 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 whether the convicted drug trafficker might have
bribed him - a charge 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 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 earlier Thursday.

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 he added that the
administration would respect the decision.

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

Although the Medellin cartel was ultraviolent, killing scores of police,
judges, journalists and top government officials 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.

One of its victims was a crusading antidrug journalist, Manuel de Dios
Unanue, who was slain in New York in 1992.

The Cali cartel also tried to buy influence, contributing millions of
dollars to the 1994 presidential election campaign of Ernesto Samper. The
scandal soured relations with Washington after Samper won the presidency,
and Washington revoked his U.S. visa.

Uribe, who was elected this year and is a strong U.S. ally, has been
courting Washington for more aid to help fight "narco-terrorism" in
Colombia, torn by a 38-year civil war fueled by drug money.

U.S. officials in Bogota criticized the rulings that freed Gilberto Rodriguez.

"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."