FORMER MEDELLIN DRUG BOSS EXTRADITED TO U.S.

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Alleged drug kingpin Fabio Ochoa was flown to the
United States Friday night to face prosecution, the highest-profile suspect
extradited from Colombia in more than a decade, a senior U.S. official said.

Ochoa, a former top leader of the notorious Medellin cartel, was escorted
aboard a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration plane, which then took off
for the United States.

His handover was a victory for U.S. officials for who have long sought the
extradition of Colombian drug lords who are flooding the United States with
cocaine and heroin.

"He's on the plane. He's on his way," the U.S. official told The Associated
Press on condition of anonymity.

The move comes four days before Secretary of State Colin Powell visits
Bogota, to discuss anti-drug efforts with President Andres Pastrana, who
signed Ochoa's extradition papers last month. Pastrana himself was
kidnapped by the Medellin cartel in January 1988 when he was running for
mayor of Bogota.

Earlier Friday, a judge lifted her order suspending the extradition.

Ochoa faces a federal indictment from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., alleging he
was part of a gang that exported 30 tons of cocaine a month to the United
States.

His family failed in a bitter fight to stop the extradition.

"Justice did not triumph, and all Colombians have lost," Martha Nieves
Ochoa, Fabio Ochoa's sister, told reporters from the family's home in Medellin.

Judge Claudia Merchan had suspended the extradition on Aug. 31 on a request
from Ochoa's lawyer, but ruled on Friday that there were no irregularities
in Ochoa's extradition that would threaten his rights.

In 1990, Ochoa was the first major Colombian trafficker to surrender in
return for a promise that he would not be extradited. But U.S. prosecutors
seeking his extradition say Ochoa resumed trafficking cocaine after leaving
a Colombian jail in 1996.

Ochoa was arrested in October 1999 along with dozens of other suspected
traffickers.

The Medellin cartel was led by Pablo Escobar, who waged a war of bombings
and assassinations in the 1980s and early 1990s in order to avoid trial and
imprisonment in the United States. Escobar was killed in 1993.

Under the Medellin cartel's pressure, extradition was declared
unconstitutional in 1991. Colombia reinstated extradition in December 1997
at the request of the United States.

Ochoa is the best known of three dozen Colombians extradited to the United
Sates since then. Some feared that resuming extradition would prompt a new
backlash by Colombia's drug traffickers. Scores of judges, police officers,
journalists and even a leading presidential candidate fell to Escobar's
reign of terror. But this time around, retaliation has not occurred -- yet.

Ochoa fought his battle against extradition peacefully -- with legal
appeals, an Internet page outlining his defense, and by erecting billboards
in Bogota and his native Medellin proclaiming: "Yesterday I made a mistake.
Today I am innocent."

The baby-faced youngest son of a prominent Medellin horse-breeding clan,
Ochoa joined Escobar's drug empire along with two older brothers. When they
were released from jail in 1996, the three promised to never get involved
in the drug business again.

The U.S. extradition request, based largely on bugged conversations between
Ochoa and another Colombian suspect, says Ochoa broke his pledge. It claims
he contributed his know-how to the exporting ring and helped provide
cocaine, airplanes and smuggling routes.

Extradition has long been a top U.S. priority in Colombia. American
officials complain that traffickers are able to threaten and bribe their
way out of justice in Colombia.

Despite years of U.S.-backed drug-fighting efforts, Colombia remains the
world's leading cocaine exporting nation and an increasingly important
source of the heroin sold in the United States.