JAILED CALI DRUG TRAFFICKER KILLED

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- A former top Cali cocaine boss was killed
while watching a soccer game in a prison yard Thursday, two years
after he surrendered and began fingering ex-associates.

Helmer ``Pacho'' Herrera was shot at least five times in the face by a
man who gained entry to the Palmira prison outside Cali by claiming to
be a lawyer for another inmate, officials said.

Herrera, 47, had been the No. 3 man in the Cali cartel, one of the
world's biggest criminal organizations, and had set up and managed
cocaine distribution rings in major U.S. cities, beginning in the 1980s.

The assailant appeared to be ``an acquaintance of Herrera because he
greeted him first,'' national police spokesman Carlos Perdomo said.

Herrera died on the way to the hospital, emergency room director Dr.
Gustavo Paredes said. Television video showed the body, in uniform and
cleats, on a gurney, the floor beneath soaked in blood.

The killer, identified as Rafael Angel Uribe, 32, was beaten by other
inmates before guards took him away. He had entered the prison a half
hour before the attack during a prison soccer match, national prisons
director Carmen Lucia Tristancho said.

She said it was unclear whether the murder weapon, a 9mm pistol, was
smuggled into the penitentiary or whether it was already inside.

Herrera surrendered to authorities in September 1996, the last of
seven major cartel members to either turn themselves in or be arrested.

He was convicted of drug trafficking in March and sentenced to six
years and eight months in prison after incriminating at least 20
former associates.

Herrera continued to seek sentence reductions, fingering his
wheelchair-bound half-brother from jail. But in September, his prison
term was increased to 14 years and eight months, following an appeal
by prosecutors.

When he surrendered, Herrera said he was tired of being on the run
from enemies and thought he would be safer behind bars. Known as a man
with a thousand faces, he had dodged hundreds of police raids, even
dressing up as a woman to elude authorities.

Drug Enforcement Administration officials in Washington said
investigators believed Herrera had continued to traffic cocaine from
prison and could have been killed by a competitor. ``It's an
occupational hazard,'' said the agency's South American operations
chief, Ron Lard.

Lard said Herrera had over the years moved many tons of cocaine into
the United States, where he was wanted for trial on murder, drug
trafficking, and money-laundering charges.

A decade ago, Herrera played a key role in the Cali cartel's secret
alliance with the government to wipe out the more violent Medellin
drug gang. His lawyer, Gustavo Salazar, said Thursday the killing
could have been related to that rivalry.

Herrera was believed responsible for a 1988 car bomb attack on a
building where the family of the late Medellin drug boss Pablo Escobar
was living. The family escaped unhurt.

He survived a September 1990 raid by Medellin cartel hit men on a
ranch he owned outside Cali in which 19 people were killed.

In the 1980s, Herrera directed cocaine distribution and
money-laundering in the New York City area for the cartel, which at
its peak exported about 80 percent of the cocaine sold in the United
States, according to the DEA.

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady