MEXICO'S FORMER ANTI-DRUG CZAR SENTENCED TO PRISON

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's disgraced former anti-drug czar, Gen.
Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, was sentenced Tuesday to almost 14 years in prison
for illegally hoarding weapons, court officials said.

Judge Armando Baez said in the city of Toluca, to the west of Mexico City,
that he had jailed the former head of the country's anti-drug efforts for
13 years, nine months and two days on the charges.

Rebollo faces two more trials on other charges.

Rebollo sparked a crisis in U.S.-Mexican relations when he was arrested in
early 1997 and accused of protecting the late drug lord Amado Carrillo
Fuentes. Until his untimely death under a plastic surgeon's knife last
July, Carrillo Fuentes was one of Mexico's most feared drug barons and ran
the notorious Juarez cartel across the border from Texas.

Accusations that Rebollo was in league with the Juarez gang came just
before Washington had to certify its southern neighbor as an ally in the
fight against the narcotics trade and raised furious opposition to
certification in Congress.

The general's anti-drug agency, the INCD, was disbanded and replaced by a
new organization, known by its Spanish acronym FEADS.

Judge Baez told reporters he had also sentenced to nearly 14 years in jail
Rebollo's personal assistant and co-defendant, army Capt. Javier Garcia
Hernandez. Both were accused of illegally taking 46 weapons from the Fifth
Military Division in the western state of Jalisco, which Rebollo used to
command, and storing them in the general's offices in the INCD.

Rebollo, who has already spent a year in the maximum-security Almoloya
penitentiary, still faces trial on charges relating to his ties with drug
traffickers and is also accused of abuse of authority. It was unclear when
the trials on those allegations would take place.

Five Mexican generals have been jailed since the beginning of last year in
connection with the drug trade.

This year's drug ``certification'' process took place with far less fanfare
than in 1997 though a Drug Enforcement Administration report leaked to the
media blasted Mexico for failing to meet its drug-fighting targets.

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said last Thursday Mexico should
be certified because of its ``strong cooperation'' with U.S. officials.

But some U.S. senators said Mexico City had made insufficient progress,
especially against corruption of low-paid officials by billionaire drug
lords. ``Does corruption exist? Sure it does. Is it bad? Of course it is.
Does that stop us cooperating? No, it doesn't,'' said a U.S. anti-drug
expert, asking not to be named.