COLOMBIA COURT AGREES TO SEND DRUG TRAFFICKER TO U.S.

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Colombia's Supreme Court on Wednesday approved a U.S.
request to extradite Fabio Ochoa, one of the highest-ranking former members
of the violent Medellin cocaine cartel.

The decision, pending its expected approval by President Andres Pastrana,
paves the way for the most prominent extradition of a Colombian drug
suspect since the 1980s.

Ochoa, once a close associate of the late Medellin cocaine boss Pablo
Escobar, was one of 31 people arrested in Colombia in an October 1999
crackdown on alleged members of a major new cocaine smuggling operation.

Should Pastrana sign the extradition papers, Ochoa would be flown to the
United States, where he faces a Florida indictment for his alleged role in
an international syndicate said to have been shipping 30 tons of cocaine a
month to the United States via Mexico.

The Supreme Court also approved extradition for two other drug suspects
captured in the crackdown known as Operation Millennium, Jairo Mesa Sanin
and Mario Sanchez Cristancho.

The president has 15 days to approve or reject the extradition. The
suspects are then entitled to a final appeal to the government that must be
decided within 10 additional days.

Legal experts said Ochoa is unlikely to avoid U.S. justice.

Seeking improved ties with the United States, Pastrana resumed extraditions
two years ago after a 10-year hiatus and has approved dozens of handovers
to U.S. authorities. Ochoa and two brothers were major figures in Escobar's
now-disbanded Medellin cartel.

Ochoa, the baby-faced son of a prominent horse-breeding clan, was the first
major Colombian trafficker to hand himself over to authorities in the early
1990s under a deal that promised he would not be extradited for past crimes.

That deal and a subsequent constitutional reform outlawing extradition were
struck in hopes of ending a terror campaign waged by the Medellin cartel to
bully the government into refraining from extraditions. Cartel henchmen set
off bombs and assassinated scores of officials before the violence finally
ceased after police killed Escobar in 1993.

The Ochoas left jail in 1996, pledging to never get involved in drug
trafficking again. A December 1997 constitutional change reinstated
extradition, but only for crimes committed after that date.

U.S. prosecutors believe Ochoa violated his promise and was trafficking
after the cutoff date as part of a large group whose cocaine shipments were
allegedly brokered by Alejandro Bernal Madrigal, a fellow Colombian also
under arrest in Colombia and wanted in the United States.

The U.S. extradition request, based largely on bugged conversations between
Ochoa and Bernal Madrigal, says Ochoa contributed his know-how to the group
and helped provide cocaine, airplanes and smuggling routes.

According to a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration document, Ochoa and
Bernal Madrigal were cartel associates in the 1980s and, at the time of
their 1999 arrests, were "two of the most powerful international
traffickers of cocaine in the world."