EX-KINGPIN IS SENTENCED TO MORE THAN 30 YEARS

MIAMI - Fabio Ochoa, once a feared leader of Colombia's deadly Medellin
drug cartel, was sentenced Tuesday to more than 30 years in prison for
returning to the drug trade after winning amnesty at home.

Ochoa, who helped transform cocaine smuggling into a tightly run,
billion-dollar business in the 1980s, was sent to prison for joining a
network capable of moving 30 tons monthly from 1997 to 1999.

"In this world of narcotrafficking and what it did to this country, the
defendant is one of four or five people who literally changed the world as
we knew it," lead prosecutor Ed Ryan said.

The charges carry a sentence of 10 years to life in prison. Prosecutors
asked for 30 years even though the defense insisted a sentence longer than
12 years would violate the agreement the U.S. government made with Colombia
to secure Ochoa's extradition. The final sentence was 30 years and five months.

"It shows the bad faith of the U.S. government," said defense attorney Roy
Black, who plans an appeal. "The U.S. government, despite its arrogance in
refusing to follow international agreements, must be held responsible for
making promises to the government of Colombia."

Ryan responded, "We feel, we believe, we are totally confident in our
assertion that we have honored our agreement."

Carmenza Jaramillo, Colombia's consul general in Miami, attended the
hearing and said afterward that the sentencing followed the agreement's
spirit. Black said she is a diplomat and not a lawyer.

Ochoa, 46, was convicted of conspiracy in May of joining a smuggling
network run by one of his former cartel underlings after serving a
five-year Colombian prison sentence and getting amnesty for his cartel
days. Under U.S. sentencing rules, he would be released at age 68.

"We are completely surprised. The ruling does not correspond to the crime
for which he was being judged," Martha Nieves Ochoa, Fabio's sister, said
in a telephone interview with The Associated Press in Bogota, Colombia.
"They weren't judging him for the crimes on which he was extradited.

By treaty, Ochoa could not be prosecuted for crimes before Colombia and the
United States renewed extradition in 1997. Prosecutors blame the Medellin
cartel for smuggling 56 tons of cocaine into the Untied States from 1978 to
1985. Ochoa is one of the biggest Colombian drug defendant brought to U.S.
justice.

Jody Avergun, chief of the Justice Department's narcotic and dangerous drug
section in Washington, attended the hearing and said she was "very satisfied."

Just before the three-hour hearing ended, Ochoa stood to address the judge,
took an oath to tell the truth but sat again without saying anything other
than his name. Black said Ochoa risked being prosecuted again for anything
he said.

Speaking for Ochoa, Black said Ochoa was "shocked" to learn the case
against him "could totally change" from the allegations listed in the
extradition papers, he was "saddened especially that his extradition was
sought under false pretenses," and he felt "he was found guilty by
association."

Ochoa looked tired with large black rings under his eyes. He shut them for
a few seconds after U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore announced his
sentence. Ochoa shook hands with Black, slapped another attorney on the
back and waved to some spectators on his way out.

The probation office, an independent arm of the court, proposed a sentence
of 19 to 23 years. The judge granted a prosecution request to bump up
Ochoa's prison time based on the enormity of his drug dealing, his
involvement in it since age 16 and his Colombian conviction.

The defense claimed at trial that Ochoa socialized with members of a
network uniting Colombian suppliers and Mexican distributors but abandoned
the drug world for good when he surrendered to Colombian authorities in 1990.

Evidence against Ochoa included testimony by ringleader Alejandro Bernal
and video and audio tapes of meetings at his Bogota office, which
prosecutors dubbed "the Wal-Mart of drug trafficking." A police microphone
was hidden in the wall behind Bernal's desk.

Ochoa attended key meetings at the office, was set to receive profits from
two cocaine shipments and suggested air drops as a safe way of getting drug
profits back to Colombia, according to trial testimony.

Ochoa's immediate family was denied visas to attend his trial and visit him
in jail. He has been in solitary confinement since his extradition in 2001.
Black said a 16-year-old niece traveling to summer camp in Canada last week
was stopped on a Miami layover, strip searched and held for two days before
being sent home.

Ochoa said after his arrest that he would be "stupid" to go back to drugs
and erected billboards in Bogota and Medellin proclaiming: "Yesterday I
made a mistake. Today I am innocent."

He was indicted in the United States for the first time in 1984 and was
accused of ordering the 1986 hit on drug pilot-turned-informant Barry Seal.

The defunct Medellin cartel was one of the most powerful and feared drug
networks of the 1980s.

Its campaign of bombings and assassinations was intended in part to keep
Colombians from being shipped to the United States for trial.

Ochoa is credited with pioneering large-scale aerial operations by
developing a waterproof box that kept cocaine dry when it was jettisoned
from planes for retrieval by speed boats.

Since Ochoa's extradition, the United States has pumped nearly $2.5 billion
in aid into Colombia, mostly to fight drugs 39 years into a civil war with
rebel groups.