US SUSPECT ESCAPES JAIL IN COLOMBIA

BOGOTA - An American drug suspect hiding inside a mattress escaped
yesterday from one of Colombia's top prisons, where he had been locked up
alongside billionaire cocaine merchants for just over a year, authorities
said.

It was the third escape since 1996 from the maximum security wing of
Bogota's Picota prison, which houses some of the country's most notorious
criminals, including Cali cartel druglords who once controlled up to 80
percent of the world's cocaine supply.

Police and prison officials said James Spencer Springette, 39, wanted on
multiple drug charges in the United States, slipped away in broad daylight
after crouching inside a mattress that he had rolled up after asking that
it be removed from his cell.

The pallet-like cotton mattress was carried through several checkpoints
guarding the prison's closely watched Cellblock A, before it was dumped
into the back of a truck and driven off prison grounds, spokesmen for the
National Prisons Institute told reporters.

The state security police, or DAS, said it was not immediately clear who
carried off the mattress with Springette inside it. But Picota's warden and
deputy warden, both police officers, were being interrogated since the
escape had all the hallmarks of an inside job, authorities said.

A police report said Springette, known by several aliases including "Jimmy
the Juice," "Elmo Brandy" and "Shawn Pickedag," weighed about 220 pounds
and stood about 5 feet 11 inches tall.

A native of St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands, Springette was arrested in
February of last year in the northwest city of Medellin by authorities
acting on a request from the US Justice Department.

A statement from the DAS described him at the time as a "big fish" in US
drug trafficking circles and said he was wanted on cocaine smuggling and
money laundering charges in the United States.

The biggest and most embarrassing escape from Picota's maximum security
ward came in January 1996 when Jose Santacruz Londono, the third-ranking
member of the Cali cartel, fled in a vehicle that allegedly belonged to
federal prosecutors.

Santacruz was gunned down by police about three months later. Brothers
Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela, the Cali cartel's overlords, have
been held in Picota's maximum security section since 1995.