DEADLY TWISTS IN COLOMBIA DRUG CASE TEST U.S. RELATIONS

BOGOTA, Colombia -- A huge shipment of cocaine seized by Colombian police
on its way to Cuba has turned into a nightmare for authorities here,
sparking four murders and tensions between U.S. and Colombian prosecutors.

Gunmen have killed two potential witnesses, plus the wife and son of one of
them, and have forced authorities to transfer the 1998 case to a "faceless
prosecutor whose identity is kept secret to protect his life."

One suspect's fight against his extradition from the United States is
raising concerns that Bogota will balk at sending Colombians to face U.S.
justice if American courts rule in his favor.

Washington has long insisted on extraditing drug lords to remove them from
a Colombian judicial system where they can bribe or threaten their way into
lighter sentences and easy prison conditions.

In a further twist to the case, the man fighting his extradition from the
United States is the son of a Colombian senator assassinated for helping to
draft the U.S.-Colombian treaty that allows extraditions.

The 7.2-ton shipment in the case, one of the largest ever confiscated in
Colombia, was found in false compartments of six freight containers seized
Dec. 3, 1998, in the Caribbean port of Cartagena.

The containers were loaded with barrels of plastic resin consigned to a
firm in Havana that manufactured plastic figurines for export to Europe.
The firm's owners were two Spaniards and a Cuban government enterprise.

Colombian counternarcotics officials and prosecutors say they believe the
two Spaniards planned to redirect the containers from Havana to Spain,
along with shipments of their figurines, and sell the cocaine in Europe.

But they admit their information on the final destination of the drugs came
from Cuba.

"We reached a dead end when the Cuban authorities all but guaranteed that
the trail led only to the two Spaniards," one counternarcotics official said.

Prosecutors say they have made progress in investigating the Colombian end
of the shipment, valued at $23 million at Bogota wholesale prices and many
times that at European or U.S. street sale prices.

DENIAL OF GUILT

Arrest warrants have been issued for the Spaniards, Jose Royo Llorca and
Jose Herrera Campos, who deny any knowledge of the drugs. But neither Cuba
nor Colombia has sought their extradition, and they remain free in Spain.

Two men charged with minor roles in the shipment will soon go on trial,
seven others are in jail while under investigation and four others are
wanted for questioning, prosecutors say.

The case began taking turns for the worse when a potential witness to the
financial dealings behind the shipment, Heriberto Bengoechea, was shot to
death in December in Cali.

Three weeks later, gunmen killed Ricardo Estrada Vergara, a suspected
principal in the deal and owner of E.I. Caribe, the firm that was shipping
the plastic resins to Cuba. His wife and son were shot to death in their
Cali home the next day.

Prosecutors say Estrada Vergara, a Seventh-Day Adventist, had been hiding
in church buildings since the drug shipment was seized and may have been
thinking about cooperating with police before his death.

PENNSYLVANIA ARREST

The case took another strange turn after prosecutors issued an arrest
warrant in December for Victor Tafur, 36, son of Sen. Donald Tafur, shot
dead in 1992 for his work on the U.S.-Colombian extradition pact.

Victor Tafur was arrested by FBI agents March 4 near his mother's home in
New Hope, Pa., where he had moved to recover from injuries he suffered in
the crash of a small plane outside Bogota early last year.

Prosecutors say several large personal checks signed by Tafur were
deposited in a bank account of Estrada Vergara's firm. That shows that he
helped finance the cocaine shipment, they say.

Tafur denies any wrongdoing and says the money came from his father's
pension, 560 million pesos, paid to his mother in 1998. He said the family
wanted to change the pesos into U.S. dollars and deposit them in a Swiss bank.