DRUG LORD'S REQUEST FOR A NEW TRIAL REJECTED

HOUSTON- Mexican drug lord Juan Garcia Abrego won't get a new trial and
will have to spend the rest of his life behind bars, a federal judge has ruled.

Michael Shelby, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, said
Tuesday U.S. District Judge Ewing Werlein Jr. found Garcia Abrego's motion
for a new trial lacked sufficient evidence and has dismissed the request.

Werlein presided over Garcia Abrego's month-long trial in 1996 when he was
convicted of 22 counts of cocaine trafficking and money laundering.

"During the trial, witnesses described for the jury an extremely dangerous
man who ruled Matamoros, Mexico through violence and the threat of
violence," Shelby said. "Evidence was presented concerning eight murders
carried out at the direction of Garcia Abrego in furtherance of his drug
trafficking activities."

Garcia Abrego appealed his conviction and sentence to the 5th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals, which upheld the jury's verdict in May 1998. The U.S.
Supreme Court later declined to review the case.

Lawyers for the former head of the drug world's Gulf Cartel then went back
to Werlein in 1999 with the renewed request, claiming prosecutorial
misconduct and constitutional violations. Werlein denied that request last
Friday.

Garcia Abrego's attorney, Tony Canales, was out of town Tuesday and did not
immediately return a phone message left by The Associated Press.

The FBI arrested Garcia Abrego in January 1996. His drug empire was
believed to have stretched from Texas' Rio Grande Valley to New York.

Prosecutors at Garcia Abrego's trial said he started out floating bundles
of marijuana across the Rio Grande, then built a cartel that ranked as the
second most powerful drug organization in Mexico.

Jurors convicted him of ferrying 15 tons of cocaine and laundering $10.5
million. He was sentenced to spend his life in a U.S. prison and pay nearly
$500 million in fines and asset forfeiture.

A one-time member of the FBI's Most Wanted List, Garcia Abrego eventually
was arrested by Mexican drug agents at a modest home near Monterrey,
Mexico. The following day he was flown to Houston, where he stood trial but
did not testify.