RULING PUTS U.S.-COLOMBIA TIES AT RISK

An obscure Colombian judge has delivered a stunning decision that
will threaten U.S. relations with its best ally in South America
unless reversed. On July 19 in Cali, Judge Oscar Hurtado turned over
to the military courts an army colonel and 14 officers and men under
his command accused of slaughtering 10 anti-narcotics policemen
earlier this year. That points to acquittal by the Colombian band of brothers.

Hurtado's ruling shatters President Alvaro Uribe's intent, expressed
to U.S. officials during his visit to Washington last month, to bring
to justice through civilian courts Col. Bayron Carvajal, leader of
the troops who killed the police officers. When I reported from
Colombia late last month, Attorney General Mario Iguaran assured me
he would prosecute the accused military in civilian courts as doing
the bidding of narcotics interests.

Scant word of this remarkable development has reached Capitol Hill in
the slow flow of news from Bogota to Washington, limiting the early
impact. It is an ominous sign that U.S. aid has not broken the
sinister Colombian link among the military, the judiciary and drug
dealers. If the prosecution is vigorously pursued against him,
Carvajal has signaled he will expose complicity by his superior
officers. All this is a boon to left-wing congressmen led by
Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, who campaign against
the U.S.-financed Plan Colombia battling narco-terrorism.

On May 22, troops of the 3rd Brigade's Mountain Battalion, commanded
by Carvajal, killed 10 U.S.-trained Colombian National Police
officers and a civilian informant at Jamundi, about 29 miles
southwest of Bogota. On his visit to Washington on June 14, Uribe
told me he had "led the decision" to transfer jurisdiction over the
case from military courts, where the conviction rate is 4 percent, to
civilian judges. "When we have cases like this one," he said, "I need
to proceed with all severity. I have said to them [the military] we
need to accept the policy."

In Bogota the next week, Colombian National Police officers told me
the 3rd Brigade, headquartered in Cali, was notorious for its drug
connections. Carvajal was noted for a high life that is not
commensurate with a colonel's pay. When I interviewed Iguaran in his
heavily guarded office in downtown Bogota, he stressed civilian
control over the case. Iguaran, a civil servant who is independent of
the executive branch, told me he has evidence linking the officers
with the drug cartel.

Carvajal and his colleagues were scheduled for routine arraignment in
Cali on July 19, with the colonel and his family present. Hurtado
announced that "ordinary justice" in Colombia was not competent to
handle this kind of case. He consequently bound the case over to the
military courts, and then ordained that his verdict could not be
appealed. Officers of the Mountain Battalion present in the courtroom
stood up cheering.

It was subsequently revealed that Hurtado himself had been sentenced
to prison in a money-laundering case under appeal, raising suspicions
of an old-style Colombian deal. Under pressure, the judge reversed
himself by saying his transfer of jurisdiction could be appealed. It
comes before a military tribunal this week, with nobody sure of the
outcome. This is the argument for extraditing accused Colombians to
the United States for adjudication here.

Carvajal's defense is based on a "line of duty" argument that the
Mountain Battalion was following orders from above. A private e-mail
by a Colombian National Police general last week said the colonel
"wants to involve others and not take the culpability on his own. He
is very close to many Army generals who are in a power position." He
called Carvajal "a very smart guy who has much information about
things that power people want kept quiet." That puts the judicial
tribunal under pressure to suppress the case.

If it is suppressed, the consequences will not be pleasant. U.S.
congressmen going to Bogota for Uribe's second inauguration Aug. 7
will give him an earful.

The pending U.S.-Colombian free-trade agreement may be dealt a death
blow. McGovern and his allies in Congress will ignore Uribe's
monumental efforts and renew their campaign for reductions in
military aid, which would be disastrous for Colombia.