COLOMBIA SENDS DRUG-RING SUSPECT TO U.S. FOR TRIAL

Extradition is the first since 1990

WASHINGTON -- A Colombian accused of running a major heroin smuggling
ring was bundled aboard a U.S. government plane in Colombia on Sunday
and flown to the United States. It is the first time in nearly a
decade that Colombia has turned over one of its citizens to stand
trial in this country.

The Clinton administration hailed the extradition of the 30- year-old
suspect, Jaime Orlando Lara, the first of 42 drug suspects being held
in Colombian jails awaiting transfer to the United States.

But it almost certainly means new turmoil for Colombia, the source of
most of the cocaine sold on U.S. streets and a fast-growing exporter
of heroin to the United States as well.

Colombian drug cartels appear to be beginning a new wave of terrorist
attacks in protest over the resumption of extraditions of drug
trafficking suspects to the United States.

Two weeks ago, a car bomb killed eight people and wounded scores of
others in a fashionable shopping district of Bogota, the capital. The
police said it was a final warning against the extradition of Lara and
the others. Similar violence led the Colombian government to halt
extraditions in 1991; the last one before Sunday's occurred in 1990.

President Andres Pastrana, who has won praise from the Clinton
administration as well as large U.S. aid commitments for his
willingness to crack down on the drug trade since he took office last
year, defiantly signed Lara's extradition order hours after the deadly
bombing.

"President Pastrana must be commended for his courage and dedication,"
said Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the White House director of drug control
policy. "Actions such as today's extradition to confront the
traffickers will send a powerful and helpful signal."

Terry Parham, the chief spokesman for the Drug Enforcement
Administration, said that Lara was "a big deal as far as being a major
trafficker," but that "the bigger deal is the resumption of the
extradition process" by Colombia. "This is very positive for law
enforcement," he said.

Pastrana has formally authorized the extradition of two other suspects
wanted in the United States on drug trafficking charges: a Cuban,
Bravilo Gonzalez, and a Venezuelan, Fernando Jose Flores.

Prosecutors hope that Flores will prove to be a valuable witness
against the leadership of the now-defunct Cali cocaine cartel.

Lara, who was flown initially from Bogota to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on
the way to New York, is wanted by federal prosecutors in Manhattan on
charges that he conspired to smuggle large amounts of heroin into the
United States and distribute it here.

Law enforcement officials have charged that, at one point, his
family-run smuggling ring exported 30 pounds of heroin a week into the
United States through distribution points in New York, Houston and
Miami, usually by hiding it in commercial airliners, sometimes in
passengers' luggage. Lara's two sisters were arrested in the United
States earlier this year.

Colombian police spokesmen were quoted in Bogota as saying Lara was in
handcuffs on Sunday morning when he was placed aboard a twin-engine
Cessna plane owned by the DEA. The spokesmen said the heavily guarded
suspect, dressed in jeans and sneakers, had not said a word as he
walked the 60 feet across the tarmac to the plane.