EX-OFFICER GETS 60-YEAR TERM

MEXICO CITY -- A judge has sentenced a former Mexican army major to 60
years in prison, an unusually heavy sentence, for helping drug lord Amado
Carrillo Fuentes escape capture, the Justice Department said Friday in a
statement.

Victor Soto Conde was discharged from the army and fined $38,000 as part of
the same sentence for organized crime drug trafficking and money laundering.

Soto used his inside knowledge of army operations to tip off Carrillo about
a raid to capture him at the wedding of his sister in the northern state of
Sinaloa.

The drug trafficker's alleged lieutenant, Ismael Zambada, paid Soto for
providing the information.

Carrillo fled the wedding shortly before police and troops arrived to
arrest him, but later died in a botched plastic surgery operation.

The sentence is the maximum allowable under Mexican law, which does not
allow for life imprisonment.