Colombia probes foreigners’ role

Press, 31 August 1989, Page 8

Colombia probes foreigners’ role

NZPA-Reuter . Colombia is investigating the possible role of foreigners in the slaying of a leading presidential candidate whose death unleashed a Government attack on cocaine lords, according to a senior official.

General Miguel Maza Marquez, head of the Department of Administrative Security, said yesterday, “We are investigating the possible participation of foreigners” in the killing of Senator Luis Carlos Galan on August 18.

said it had begun extradition to the United States of the most important suspect arrested in the Government offensive.

The department said last week that Israeli, British and United States mercenaries trained hit squads linked to the drug cartels The father of three reputed Medellin cartel drug leaders yesterday proposed talks with the President, Virgilio Barco, to end the war between traffickers and the Government. A member of Mr Barco’s Cabinet immediately rejected negotiations and the Justice Ministry

The slaying of Mr Galan provoked Mr Barco to declare war against the country’s powerful drug lords. The cartels responded by threatening to kill judges, journalists, labour leaders, politicians and police. Yesterday the drug lords appeared to hold out an olive branch in the form of an open letter to Mr Barco from Fabio Ochoa Vasquez, whose three sons — Jorge Luis, Fabio Jun. and Juan David — are on the United States list of “12 most wanted” Colombian drug chiefs. "Let us sit down and have a dialogue,” Mr

Ochoa said in his letter. He said the Government had effectively set itself up in opposition to more than half the Colombian people and that only negotiations could end the country’s spiral of violence. In an apparent response to Mr Ochoa’s letter, Colombia’s Justice Minister, Monica de Greiff, told a news conference in Washington her Government was in no mood to enter into peace negotiations. The Colprensa news agency reported that the Justice Ministry had initiated the extradition to the United States of Eduardo Martinez' Romero, who the police say is the most important suspect arrested in the sweep. Martinez Romero, aged 30,

was indicted last March in the United States in an alleged SUSI.2 billion money-laundering scheme. A Government official, who requested anonymity, confirmed the Colprensa report. In Washington, the Justice Department said Martinez Romero could be extradited in the next week or two. Also yesterday, bombs blew up six buildings in Medellin, damaging liquor stores run under Government concessions, and a bomb damaged a travel agency in Bogota. In Washington, the State Department recommended that United States citizens postpone non-es-sential travel to Colombia indefinitely and urged those already there to consider leaving.