Drug-Trafficking Suspect Surrenders in Colombia
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A leader of the Medellin drug ring surrendered to the authorities today, just one day after the Government offered drug traffickers new incentives to turn themselves in. The man, Fabio Ochoa Vasquez, who with his two brothers and Pablo Escobar heads Colombia’s largest and most notorious cocaine-dealing organization, surrendered to a local criminal justice official on a farm south of Medellin. Mr. Ochoa, who was one of 12 people named by the Justice Department last year as “drug-trafficking kingpins,” is wanted on several indictments in theUnited States, including one filed in Jacksonville, Fla., in the spring of 1989 accusing him of being part of a conspiracy to smuggle more than $1 billion in cocaine into the United States. In 1986 he was charged in Baton Rouge, La., with plotting the murder that year of Adler Barry Seal, a convicted smuggler who had agreed to testify against members of the Medellin organization. He was cut down by submachine gun fire as he stepped out of his car in front of a prison half-way house. Mr. Ochoa turned himself in less than 24 hours after President Cesar Gaviria Trujillo offered new enticements for drug traffickers to surrender. In a presidential decree, Mr. Gaviria said he would appoint a special delegate to protect traffickers’ human rights, provide special jails and refuse extradition under any circumstances. ‘Government Is Statisfied’ More : query.nytimes.com |