TRIAL OF EX-KINGPIN STARTS TODAY

MIAMI, Fla. -- One of the biggest Colombian druglords ever brought to
the United States to face justice goes on trial today under security
so tight that the anonymous jurors will be driven back and forth to
court in vans with tinted windows to protect their identities. Fabio
Ochoa Sanchez is accused of getting back into the cocaine business in
the late 1990s, after serving time for his role as one of the bosses
of the now-defunct Medellin cartel, one of the most powerful drug
networks of the 1980s.

He is the most prominent drug defendant brought to the United States
since Colombia resumed extraditions in 1997.

Ochoa "is responsible for the destruction of countless lives," Asa
Hutchinson, then head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said
when Ochoa arrived in Miami in handcuffs. "His greed and ruthless
behavior are unsurpassed, even among the most notorious traffickers of
the cartel era."

Ochoa, who turns 46 this month, could get life in prison if convicted.
He has been in a Miami jail since his extradition in September 2001.

Ochoa served five years in a Colombian prison in the 1990s. Under the
extradition treaty, the United States cannot try him for any of his
cartel activities, including his alleged role in the 1986 hit on drug
pilot and informant Barry Seal.

The case against him is built instead on allegations he got back into
the cocaine business by joining up with a longtime friend, Alejandro
Bernal Madrigal, in an operation that smuggled as much as 30 tons of
the drug into this country per month.

Ochoa has denied returning to the cocaine business, proclaiming at the
time of his 1999 arrest that he would be "stupid" to get into drugs
again.

Four to eight other figures arrested in the case are expected to
testify for the government, including ringleader Bernal, who struck a
deal with prosecutors in April in hopes of winning leniency when he is
sentenced. He could get up to life in prison.