COLOMBIAN WILL NOT BE EXTRADITED

Prosecutors could not prove that the man, who is living in Bucks
County, knew he was dealing with drug traffickers.

A federal judge yesterday refused to return a Colombian lawyer to his
homeland to face drug-related charges, saying prosecutors lacked proof
the lawyer knew he was dealing with narcotics traffickers when he used
a Colombian businessman to help transfer money to his mother in Bucks
County.

"If we're going to do a certificate of extraditability for him, then
we might as well do one for the mother," U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles
B. Smith told federal prosecutors. "It was her money that was being
used."

Smith's ruling was a setback for federal prosecutors and
drug-enforcement authorities, who had publicized the arrest of Victor
Manuel Tafur-Dominguez as the first Colombian to face extradition from
the United States under a 1979 treaty between the two countries.

Prosecutors had argued that it was important for the United States to
reciprocate because Colombia has regularly sent its citizens to this
country to face U.S. drug charges.

Tafur-Dominguez's father, Donald Tafur, was a Colombian legislator and
antidrug campaigner who helped to write the extradition treaty between
Colombia and the United States. He was slain in 1992, reputedly by
assassins hired by drug traffickers.

Tafur-Dominguez, 36, left the federal courthouse in Center City free
to return to the New Hope-area home of his mother and stepfather,
Solita and Chase Rosade, where he has been recovering from injuries
suffered in a plane crash last year while studying for a master's
degree in environmental law.

"I just want to get this all cleared up," Tafur-Dominguez said after
the hearing, surrounded by supporters from law school.

Tafur-Dominguez's freedom could be tenuous. Although Smith's ruling
cannot be appealed, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Thomas J. Eicher and
Virgil B. Walker said extradition petitions could be renewed
repeatedly based on new evidence.

Eicher said it was likely that a new petition would be filed. "I think
that's a decision that the Colombia authorities have to make," he said.

Tafur-Dominguez's U.S. lawyer, Joseph A. Tate, said he was also
concerned that U.S. immigration officials would try to arrest
Tafur-Dominguez and deport him. Smith told Tate that he might have to
move quickly to obtain a court order blocking such a move.

Tafur-Dominguez was arrested March 4 on a September 1999 warrant
involving a Colombian investigation into the seizure of about seven
tons of cocaine.

Tafur-Dominguez was implicated, Colombian authorities alleged, because
checks totalling $350,000 that he wrote and signed over to a Colombian
businessman were then used to pay for shipping containers that
concealed the cocaine.

Tafur-Dominguez said he knew nothing about the cocaine shipment and
was simply trying to convert the money - a widow's pension voted to
his mother in 1998 by the Colombian Congress - from pesos to dollars
to forward to Bucks County.