JAILED DRUG LORD MAY BE ORDERING HITS

A Colombian drug lord jailed in the U.S. may be ordering the murder of
his enemies through the use of relatives and e-mail, U.S. officials
said.

U.S. and Colombian authorities are investigating whether a top
Colombian drug lord in an American U.S. prison used relatives and e-
mails to order the murder of enemies, officials and lawyers close to
the case say.

Victor Patio Fomeque, 45, is regarded as one of the top drug lords
held in a U.S. prison, a former leader of the powerful Northern Valley
Cartel who was extradited to the United States in 2003 and is awaiting
trial.

Although there has been no official confirmation that Patio has
been cooperating with U.S. prosecutors, many of his associates in
Colombia believe that he is -- and have unleashed scores of revenge
and counter-revenge killings.

FAMILY QUESTIONED

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents have questioned Patio's
mother, Deisy Fomeque, and his sisters, Maria Helena and Marleny,
about the e-mails, said Patio's Miami attorney Humberto Dominguez.
The three women live in the United States under U.S. government
protection, apparently part of Patio's deal with prosecutors.

Deisy Fomeque has claimed that most of the 200 hundred suspect
e-mails, obtained by El Nuevo Herald from persons close to the case,
were fake. ''They mixed facts and falsehoods and wrote down whatever
came into their minds,'' she said.

But senior Colombian police officials said they believe the e-mails
are real communications between Patio relatives in the United
States and Colombia -- and that they sometimes indicate that Pati=F1o
is giving orders.

For example, one e-mail from a Patio nephew, who later was jailed
in Colombia, seemed to show that the nephew ordered the murder of a
crooked policeman referred to only as ''Baldy'' Molina. ''Baldy is
already with my dad,'' said one e-mail sent on last August by the
nephew, whose father has been dead for some time, to Patio's sister
Maria Elena Ocampo.

Another e-mail, this time from a Patio relative in the United
States -- someone close to the nephew -- indicated that Patio may
have been guiding the nephew's actions.

Patio ''says you should see what you can do to solve the problem of
[the jailed nephew] . . . because . . . if they find out that
[Patio] . . . was sponsoring everything he [the nephew] did, the
negotiations [for a reduced U.S. sentence] could get complicated,''
said the e-mail.

An e-mail later in the same day, apparently from Patio's sister
Marleny, says, ``I'm very happy to hear about that S.O.B. Molina . . .
and please keep us informed us about the casualties.''

FORGERY ALLEGED

Dominguez maintained the e-mails were forged by Patio's enemies in
the Northern Valley Cartel.

''The family left there because Colombia is incapable of protecting
its own citizens,'' but now is suspected of running its violent
affairs by long-distance, the lawyer added. ``That's absurd''.