COLOMBIAN DRUG LORD GETS 30-YEAR SENTENCE IN MIAMI COURT

MIAMI -- A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced the highest-ranking Colombian
drug lord ever to face U.S. justice to more than 30 years in prison.

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

The charges had carried a possible life sentence, but prosecutors
recommended 30 years even though the defense insisted a sentence longer
than 12 years would violate conditions of Ochoa's 1999 extradition. The
final sentence was 30 years and five months.

"It shows the bad face of the U.S. government," said defense attorney Roy
Black. "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."

Ochoa, 46, was convicted 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. procedures, past convictions are used to bump up sentences, but
Ochoa's Colombian prison term does not count. Prosecutors are allowed to
seek an "upward departure" to expand punishment beyond past convictions.

"We feel, we believe, we are totally confident in our assertion that we
have honored our agreement," said lead prosecutor Ed Ryan.

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 in 1990.

By treaty, Ochoa could not be prosecuted for crimes before Colombia and the
United States renewed extradition in 1997.

Ochoa wasn't the original target; authorities in the United States and
Colombia were after Alejandro Bernal Madrigal, who ran a 30-ton-a-month
smuggling ring, when they planted a bug in his Bogota office. But when
Ochoa turned up on the tapes the target turned witness, testified for the
government and received a reduced, 14-year sentence.

Although Ochoa merely made a cameo appearance on hundreds of hours of
wiretaps and videotapes, it was enough for prosecutors to prove he had
returned to the cocaine trade. Last May, a jury took just five hours to
convict Ochoa of two cocaine-conspiracy counts. Ochoa dramatically dropped
to his knees and blessed himself as those verdicts were read.

Ochoa's sentencing also marks the close of a bloody chapter of South
Florida history. During the cocaine wars of the 1980s, so many Colombians
were gunned down on the streets of Miami that the county medical examiner
rented refrigerated trailers to store the overflow of corpses.

The now-defunct Medellin cartel then was responsible for 80 percent of the
cocaine brought into the United States, raking in an estimated $7 billion a
year, authorities said at the time. The cartel protected its empire through
intimidation, murder and wholesale corruption of the Colombian justice system.

Staff Writer Ann W. O'Neill contributed to this report.