Pubdate: Mon, 22 Nov 1999 Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer (WA) Copyright: 1999 Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Contact: http://www.seattle-pi.com/ Author: Vivian Sequera, The Associated Press COLOMBIA EXTRADITES DRUG SUSPECT TO U.S. BOGOTA, Colombia - Police put a man accused of heroin trafficking on a U.S. government plane to Florida yesterday, the first time in nearly a decade Colombia has turned over one of its nationals to stand trial in the United States. The hand-over of 30-year-old Jaime Orlando Lara to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration comes 10 days after a deadly terrorist bomb exploded in Bogota in what many suspected was a warning against extraditions. President Andres Pastrana defiantly signed Lara's extradition papers just hours after the explosion Nov. 11, which killed eight bystanders in an upscale shopping district. "In compliance with that executive decision, this citizen was transferred today to the United States," judicial police director Gen. Ismael Trujillo told reporters at a Bogota air base from which Lara left yesterday morning on a DEA plane for Fort Lauderdale. The handcuffed and heavily guarded suspect walked the 60 feet to the twin-engine Cessna without uttering a word, police said. Lara was indicted in New York in October 1998. Prosecutors say he headed a smuggling ring that shipped as many as 30 pounds of heroin to the United States on commercial flights and distributed it through New York, Houston and Miami. Colombia exports 80 percent of the world's cocaine and is a rising heroin supplier to the U.S. market. Acting on a U.S. request, police captured Lara in Bogota in December. He was among 42 drug suspects awaiting possible extradition to the United States. At least 30 of those are Colombians captured Oct. 13 in a sweep authorities dubbed Operation Millennium. Colombian banned extradition in 1991, capitulating to a wave of bombings and assassinations by the now-defunct Medellin drug cartel and its notorious leader, Pablo Escobar. The Nov. 11 bombing revived painful memories of that era, although investigators have yet to blame it on drug traffickers. Under heavy pressure from Washington, Colombia reinstated extradition in December 1997. Lara is the first Colombian sent abroad since the reinstatement. White House drug policy chief Barry McCaffrey yesterday praised Pastrana "for his courage and dedication" in "making a sincere effort to confront drug trafficking." In the past three years, the cultivation of coca - the raw material of cocaine - has doubled in Colombia, McCaffrey said. The country has also become a major heroin exporter. U.S. officials argue that extradition is the only way to ensure that Colombian drug traffickers receive stiff punishments for their crimes. Due to weak laws, corruption and threats against judges and prosecutors, many top drug convicts have received short sentences in Colombia. The last time Colombia extradited one of its nationals for trials in the United States was 1990. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D