DRUG CASE KEEPS ARTWORK IN LIMBO

Although wealthy Barcelona art collector Helena DeSaro has nothing to
do with an ongoing South Florida drug case, two pricey masterpieces
she claims to own are caught in the middle of it.

A Miami federal judge dealt DeSaro another setback this week in her
quest to get back two paintings, worth $10 million. The Drug
Enforcement Administration seized them in Miami in March 2002.

"The paintings are in legal limbo," said DeSaro's Miami attorney,
Sharon Kegerreis. DeSaro's prospects of seeing her masterpieces any
time soon are uncertain because the man charged with using them in a
money-laundering scheme is unlikely to ever stand trial in the United
States.

"That puts it in a very unusual posture," said Kegerreis. "The
government has tied up valuable property. Something is very wrong
about the government holding on to property without showing any
factual basis."

While DeSaro can't convince the courts that she owns the paintings,
the government hasn't proved somebody else does. As a result, the DEA
could hold onto the paintings indefinitely.

U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King ruled Tuesday that DeSaro
failed to establish her claim to a 1793 Goya titled El Atraca a la
Diligencia and a 1924 nude, Buste de Jeune Femme, by Japanese
impressionist Tsuguharu Foujita.

The government is contending that indicted Spanish financier Jose
Marie Clemente used the paintings in an elaborate scheme to pay off a
$10 million drug debt.

Clemente was indicted along with Nayef Al-Shaalan, a banker who
married into the Saudi royal family, and the banker's former
girlfriend, Doris Mangeri Salazar, a Coral Gables real estate agent.
They were accused of shipping two tons of Colombian cocaine in 1999 by
invoking diplomatic immunity while flying from Venezuela through Saudi
Arabia to Paris on the banker's private jet.

King's ruling, after a two-day trial of DeSaro's civil suit, mirrors a
magistrate's findings during the early stages of the criminal case.
That decision is being appealed, according to DeSaro's lawyer.

The paintings normally are stored in Geneva but were in Miami because
Clemente said he had a buyer for them, DeSaro said. They met in Spain
and Clemente said in court papers that she thought he was "a very
important person."

He promised to have the paintings sold within a week. When the week
passed and she didn't hear from Clemente, DeSaro said she called and
learned they'd been seized by the DEA.

Three months later, a federal grand jury's indictment listed the
paintings in a forfeiture count. DeSaro said in her lawsuit that the
United States hadn't come close to proving the allegation.

The case is further complicated because Clemente is jailed on
identical charges in Spain, which will not extradite him. To win the
forfeiture count, the government first must obtain a conviction
against Clemente, but that isn't possible if he never stands trial.

Salazar is the only defendant in custody in the United States. Her
trial has been tentatively set for next month.