THE ALLIES OF SAMPER EYE ASYLUM

BOGOTA -- As a court investigation opens into a 1996 decision by Congress
to clear the President at the time, Ernesto Samper, of criminal charges, a
group that championed him in Congress is trying to obtain asylum in Europe.

In meetings over several weeks, 17 senators and deputies, led by Martha
Catalina Daniels, mapped a plan to request asylum in Germany, Britain,
France and Italy on the ground of political persecution. None of the
countries have extradition treaties with Colombia.

Ms. Daniels left for Germany with her two youngest children last week after
reportedly bidding farewell to her husband, Hernando Rodriguez, in a room
at a police training center that has been turned into a jail for public
officials gone wrong.

Rodriguez landed in jail after stealing $10 million when he was in charge
of privatizing Colpuertos, a public riverport administration.

On her way out, the newspaper El Tiempo reported, Ms. Daniels gave farewell
hugs to jailed friends: former Congressman Rodrigo Garavito and David
Turbay and Rodolfo Gonzalez, two of six former Colombian comptrollers who
have landed in prison.

Samper's supporters had been more accustomed to diplomatic postings for
family and friends, control over patronage jobs and Government largesse in
their districts. Their troubles began when the court made its decision days
after Andres Pastrana won the presidency on June 21; he took office on Aug.
21. It was Pastrana who had made public taped conversations of Samper's
1994 campaign soliciting contributions from drug chiefs in exchange for
promises of lenient treatment.

Two years after a large majority of Congress voted to clear Samper of
charges that Cali drug dealers had bankrolled his election, the Supreme
Court said it would determine whether deputies had ignored "overwhelming
evidence" of his guilt, and whether any of them profited from the decision.
If found guilty, their sentences could range from six months to eight years.

Under Samper, the public budget and patronage machine was openly used to
dole out favors to figures who could keep him in office, along with their
family and friends. Heyne Mogollon, a deputy whose Committee of Accusations
decided against allowing all the evidence against the President to go
before the full Congress, found that a new road had been built clear to his
home in Cordoba.

Members of Congress have been meeting to plan a counterattack. Senator
Carlos Alonso Lucio, a former deputy who has publicly supported measures to
benefit drug traffickers in Congress, was designated to pitch the group's
case before Amnesty International and the United Nations Commission on
Human Rights, El Tiempo said.

In a phone interview Thursday, Senator Alonso said he had not yet
determined whether to seek refuge in Europe, but would most likely decide
as he saw the course of the investigation. "It's a possible answer," he said.

Enrique Parejo, a former Justice Minister who brought one of several public
complaints that prompted the court's investigation, confessed that he was
surprised at the decision to take up the case after such a long period and
at the idea of Samper's supporters seeking asylum.

"It's ridiculous," said the former minister, who survived an assassination
attempt by Medellin drug dealers in the late 1980's. "They're doing the
same thing they did under Samper: using the laws to help themselves and
erode the image of Colombia."

Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company

Checked-by: Pat Dolan