COLOMBIAN'S EXTRADITION DENIED

PHILADELPHIA, May 3 - A federal judge here today refused the Colombian
government's request to extradite Victor Manuel Tafur-Dominguez, a lawyer
who worked to eradicate drug crops in his native country, but whom the
Colombian government claims was involved in a drug-trafficking scheme.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles B. Smith, ruling immediately after a two-hour
hearing, said there were "gaping holes" in the government's contention that
Tafur-Dominguez helped finance a seven-ton cocaine shipment that was
intercepted at the port of Cartagena in 1998.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Eicher, who presented the Colombian
government's case, said after the hearing that Smith's ruling could not be
appealed, but that the extradition request could be refiled. "That's a
decision for the Colombians to make," he said.

The Colombian attorney general's office, which issued a statement on
Tuesday that there is "solid proof" that Tafur-Dominguez was involved in
the drug transaction, could not be reached for comment today.

This was the first time Colombia sought to have the United States extradite
a suspected drug trafficker since the extradition treaty between the two
countries was signed in 1979. Donald Tafur, Tafur-Dominguez's father, was a
high-ranking Colombian legislator who helped craft the treaty, a move that
made him unpopular with the drug cartel. The older Tafur was assassinated
in 1992 at his home in Cali, Colombia, a presumed victim of the country's
drug wars.

In the Tuesday statement, the Colombian attorney general said questions
raised by the United States about "the validity of the evidence submitted
by the Colombian authorities could have an effect on the reciprocity that
defines the law of extradition."

The U.S. government has insisted on extraditing drug traffickers to the
United States from Colombia, where in the past they have used intimidation
or payoffs to get more favorable sentences.

For the younger Tafur-Dominguez, whose case has become a cause celebre
among the faculty and students at Pace University School of Law in New
York, where he has been studying since last summer, the ruling apparently
ends a two-month nightmare. He was arrested March 4 by federal drug agents
and spent six weeks in a Philadelphia jail cell until he was released on
bond two weeks ago.

Tafur-Dominguez, 36, came to the United States last year to recuperate from
a near-fatal plane crash and study environmental law. He said he intends to
fight the charges against him in Colombia, but fears his life would be in
danger if he were to return there. At a hearing on the case last month,
Justice Department lawyers said a dozen people involved in the
investigation have been killed.

The case stems from a $350,000 pension the Colombian government paid in
1998 on behalf of Tafur-Dominguez's father. Colombian officials claim
Tafur-Dominguez used the pension money to finance the cocaine shipment that
was bound for Spain.

Tafur-Dominguez says he wrote checks to a private businessman to exchange
the pension pesos to dollars and have the funds wired to a Swiss bank, at
the request of his mother, who was living in the United States by then. The
Colombian government claims those 13 checks turned up in the hands of E.I.
Caribe, a front company involved in the drug shipment.

The pension money was transferred almost immediately to the Swiss bank
account, where it remained until it was used to post bail for
Tafur-Dominguez last month.

Eicher acknowledged at the start of today's hearing that there was "no
direct evidence" linking Tafur-Dominguez to the drug transaction. But he
kept hammering away at why Tafur-Dominguez would use an unofficial means to
exchange and transfer the money instead of going through a bank. "He would
have the court believe he parted company with his family fortune with no
guarantee and relied on good will to make sure he got the money," Eicher said.