COLOMBIAN COURT APPROVES SUSPECTED TRAFFICKER'S EXTRADITION

(08-09) 07:43 PDT BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- A man identified by U.S.
officials as one of Colombia's most powerful and ruthless drug traffickers
can be extradited to the United States to stand trial, the country's
Supreme Court has said.

If President Andres Pastrana approves the court's Tuesday recommendation,
Alberto Orlandez Gamboa would become the third Colombian extradited to the
United States since the country lifted its ban on extraditions in 1997.
Pastrana favors extraditing accused drug traffickers to the United States,
where stiffer penalties often await them.

According to an indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan last
year, Gamboa is the head of an international drug trafficking and money
laundering organization headquartered in Barranquilla, on Colombia's
Caribbean coast.

U.S. federal prosecutors say Gamboa conspired to import thousands of
kilograms of cocaine from Colombia to New York and other U.S. destinations
and distribute it. He is also accused of smuggling cocaine to Europe since
1991 and conspiring to launder millions of dollars in drug profits.

The 44-year-old Gamboa, nicknamed "Caracol" -- Spanish for "The Snail" --
was arrested in June 1998 in Bogota on charges of murder, kidnapping and
illicit enrichment.