Judges live in fear

Press, 5 September 1989, Page 8

Judges live in fear

NZPA-Reuter Medellin

In the Colombian drug capital of Medellin the mere sound of a motorcycle can terrorise those who live in fear of ruthless cocaine lords. Motor-cycles are a favourite tool of the dreaded drug hit men, the "sicarios” (assassins). Even on traffic-snarled streets the motor-cycles allow for a speedy getaway from the scene of a murder.

Now, the men behind Colombia’s campaign of terror are using tape recordings of motor-cycles to add a menacing touch to their telephone death threats.

A Medellin judge, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he had received such a macabre threat last week.

On picking up the telephone, he said, “I heard a motor-cycle, first braking and then with its wheels squealing as if to accel-

erate.” After the sound, he added, a voice told him, “You’re a dead man — too bad,” and hung up ihe telephone.

“I have received death threats several times,” the judge said.

“But the threats have intensified since the Government declared war on drug traffickers.” The Government decreed emergency measures two weeks ago to crack down on the underground cocaine empire. The measures include the revival of an extradition treaty with the United States.

The drug lords have lashed back with a wave of dynamite attacks and threats to kill 10 judges for every drug suspect extradited. The threats are taken seriously in a country where more than 350 judges and judicial employees have been killed since 1980 in what the

National Judicial Association describes as mostly drug-related violence. The last judge killed in Colombia was shot on August 16, hours after he upheld an arrest warrant for Pablo Escobar Gaviria, one of 12 cocaine cartel chieftains whose extradition is sought by the United States. /

Hundreds of judges have tendered their resignations in recent weeks, citing death threats and a lack of adequate security, according to the judicial association. A 5NZ109 million emergency United States aid package to help Colombia fight its drug war includes bullet-proof vests for judges, as well as helicopters and planes. A spokesman for the Medellin branch of the judicial association, Hector Rivera, said seven judges have been killed in Antioquia province, of which Medellin is the

capital, in the last six years. Most were murdered by gunmen on motor-cycles. The most recent victim, Maria Elena Diaz, was investigating massacres carried out by paramilitary groups in Antioquia — which the Government said were funded by drug traffickers — when she was shot down in July, 1988.

A senior tlnited States drug expert expressed fears last week in remarks to reporters in Bogota that Colombia’s judiciary may be initimidated into blocking the emergency measures that the Colombian President, Virgilio Barco, has decreed to fight drug lords. The country’s supreme court, which quashed an extradition treaty with the United States in June, 1987, has yet to rule on the constitutionality of the new measures.