COLOMBIAN SAYS U.S. COVERED UP HEROIN SCAM

BOGOTA (Reuters) - A former chauffeur at the U.S. embassy in Bogota
has accused U.S. officials of covering up the scale of a
heroin-smuggling ring involving a U.S. military commander and his wife
that operated from the mission.

Ex-driver and bodyguard Jorge Ayala, held in a top security Bogota
prison pending a U.S. extradition request relating to his role in the
scheme, also alleged in an interview with Reuters that a Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA) official helped smuggle drugs from
Colombia to the United States as U.S. Marine guards turned a blind
eye.

The interview was conducted last Thursday but Reuters held the story
while it awaited responses to follow-up queries made to the U.S.
embassy, the DEA and the Army department.

Ayala's former boss, Col. James Hiett, former Military Group commander
in charge of all U.S. Army and anti-narcotics operations in Colombia,
is due to be sentenced in a New York court this week after he admitted
concealing evidence of how profits from the drug shipments, totaling
some 13 pounds (six kg), were laundered.

The sentence will come just two weeks after Congress approved a record
$1.3 billion package of mostly military aid to help Colombia fight
drug trafficking and Marxist rebels.

Hiett's wife Laurie was jailed by a Brooklyn court in May for five
years after pleading guilty to smuggling heroin worth $700,000 to New
York in six packages sent via the U.S. embassy postal service in
Bogota between May and June 1999. She told the court she had
previously received treatment for drug addiction.

The U.S. Department of the Army, which led the initial inquiry, said
on Tuesday there was an ``on-going investigation'' into the
embassy-based heroin ring but declined to say whether the DEA official
named by Ayala was under scrutiny.

Embarrassment For Embassy

The case, which broke last year, caused international embarrassment
for the U.S. diplomatic compound in Bogota, a bunker-like building
with fortress security on the frontline of the U.S. drug war in Latin
America.

``What moral authority has the U.S. embassy got to request my
extradition when there's a group of narco-traffickers in their own
ranks that are being covered up by the American authorities,'' Ayala
said in the interview.

``They wanted to keep the name of the Mil (military) Group and the
embassy clean... This also involved the colonel (Hiett) and a DEA
official. And what about the Marines and the security company?'' he
said.

Col. Hiett was initially cleared of any wrongdoing by army
investigators. But the U.S. Customs Service pressed on and eventually
he admitted involvement in the smuggling racket.

A U.S. government source said the DEA conducted an internal
investigation against the DEA agent, who was based in Bogota until
recently, but took no further action. At one stage in his
interrogation, army investigators asked Ayala if he was aware the DEA
official had mailed at least one parcel of heroin.

A DEA spokesman in Washington said the case would have been referred
to the U.S. Attorney's office for review if any evidence of criminal
action had been found.

Ayala, who worked as a U.S. Military group chauffeur for 15 years, was
arrested in February and is being held in a cell alongside some of
Colombia's most notorious drug lords in Bogota's maximum security La
Picota prison.

Driver Said Colonel Pressured Him To Lie

``They're trying to present me as if I were a drug capo,'' said Ayala,
who lived in a rented apartment in a working-class neighborhood of
northwest Bogota.

In initial questioning last year, Ayala told U.S. Army investigators
he helped Col. Hiett's wife obtain drugs in Bogota. In a subsequent
witness statement, he recanted, saying Col. Hiett pressured him to
lie.

Ayala told Reuters that Col. Hiett bought a Jeep Grand Cherokee with
proceeds from his wife's drug sales. The colonel has admitted paying
off bills with profits from his wife's drug sales and keeping some of
the illicit cash in an embassy safe.

During her trial, Laurie Hiett said her husband had no advance
knowledge she was shipping drugs through the embassy postal service,
which he ultimately controlled as head of the Military Group. She said
she mailed the packages as a favor to Ayala.

An embassy spokesman in Bogota declined comment on the case but said
security measures in place at the embassy normally involved checking
all parcels being brought into the building.