MEXICO REJECTS US EXTRADITION EFFORT

MEXICO CITY (AP) Mexico's Supreme Court has refused to consider a
request by the government to extradite an alleged drug trafficking
suspect to the United States.

Instead the case is to be heard by a lower, appeals court, the Supreme
Court said Wednesday.

Mexico's government is trying to extradite Everardo Arturo Paez
Martinez, alleged to be a top lieutenant of Mexico's most violent drug
gang, based in the border city of Tijuana.

Police said they arrested Paez in November 1997 after he allegedly
tried to bribe a police officer who suspected him of carrying an
illegal gun.

Paez, 30 at the time of the arrest, is charged in an indictment in San
Diego with conspiring to distribute 2,200 pounds of cocaine in the
United States.

The arrest followed increased U.S. pressure on Mexican authorities to
crack down on the drug trade and on the Arellano Felix gang. U.S.
authorities say the ring has murdered, tortured and intimidated
Mexican police commanders, prosecutors and reporters.

In a news release, the court said it declined to consider the case
because Mexico's attorney general's office and Foreign Secretariat had
failed to show that it affects "affairs of interest and transcendence"
for society and the government itself.

It said an appeals court based in Toluca, west of Mexico City, could
consider whether extradition is in line with Mexican law and
international treaties.

The government is fighting to overturn an injunction against
extradition issued by a district court.