INFORMER SAYS DRUG CARTEL IS KILLING OFF HIS RELATIVES IN COLOMBIA

A jailed informer who says his relatives in Colombia are being killed off
because his testimony helped American prosecutors win convictions in a
murder case pleaded tearfully yesterday for his family to be moved to the
United States.

The man, John Harold Mena, a former member of the Cali drug cartel,
testified against his accomplices in a plot to kill Manuel de Dios Unanue,
an antidrug journalist who was assassinated in Queens in 1992. Mr. Mena,
33, said that in addition to a lesser prison sentence, federal officials
promised to safeguard his family in return for his cooperation. But Mr.
Mena said that his father and four other relatives had been killed by the
cartel since 1994, and that there were three more murder attempts in July.

"How many more?" Mr. Mena asked Judge Edward R. Korman in United States
District Court in Brooklyn yesterday.

Kelly A. Moore, an assistant United States attorney, told the judge that
the Drug Enforcement Administration is conducting a "threat assessment" in
Colombia to determine if Mr. Mena's relatives are in danger. She asked for
another month to complete the investigation.

Mr. Mena's lawyer, Edward D. Wilford, said Mr. Mena has 12 to 20 relatives
in Colombia who are in grave danger. He asked the judge to grant an
extension of only two weeks.

It was then that Mr. Mena was invited to step forward. He said that his
mother had told the government in 1992 that one of the men behind Mr. de
Dios's killing, Guillermo Leon Restrepo Gaviria, had promised that the
cartel would kill everyone in Mr. Mena's family.

"That is exactly what they have done," Mr. Mena said through an
interpreter. "These are innocent people, poor people. The only thing is
that they are members of my family." In Colombia, he continued, breaking
down, "The cartel has the power and the money to do anything they want to
my family, because my family has no money. They have no place to hide."

Judge Korman gave the government three weeks to complete its investigation.

Afterward, Mr. Wilford said that if the government concluded that the
threat was not sufficient to warrant moving Mr. Mena's kin to the United
States, he would move to have the judge order them brought here.