JUDGE: PROTECT CARTEL CANARY'S KIN

A federal judge came to the aid of an informant who says five relatives in
Colombia were murdered by a drug cartel because of his testimony - siding
with prosecutors in their rift with the DEA over whether to protect the
man's remaining family.

Calling the circumstances "extraordinary," Judge Edward Korman ordered
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelly Moore yesterday to ask immigration officials
to bring 18 of John Harold Mena's relatives to the United States, despite
the Drug Enforcement Administration's refusal to cooperate.

Prosecutors confirmed that five of the informant's family members have been
killed since 1992, when Mena fingered the killers of Manuel de Dios Unanue,
an anti-drug crusader and editor of the Spanish-language newspaper El
Diario-La Prensa, who was murdered in Queens.

But the DEA concluded after a 60-day investigation that the murders were
not related to Mena's cooperation, Moore told Korman at a hearing in
Brooklyn federal court.

"Mr. Mena's family lives in poor and dangerous neighborhoods in a dangerous
country," Moore said.

The DEA formally denied repeated demands by prosecutors to aid Mena's
relatives - most recently in July, after Mena's cousin was murdered and a
home was bombed.