FBIS3-11210
"drlat053_o_94001"
FBIS-LAT-94-053
Document Type:Daily Report
20 Feb 1994
Colombia
Cartel Lawyers Deny Client's Ties to Pepes
94SM0265Z Santa Fe de Bogota EL ESPECTADOR in Spanish 20 Feb
94 p 13A
94SM0265Z
Santa Fe de Bogota EL ESPECTADOR
Language: Spanish
Article Type:CSO
[Text] Santa Fe de Bogota--In the first week of August
1993, the prosecutor general met in his office with the members
of the law firm Ristaud & Abbel, who claimed to represent an
organization of some 60 drug traffickers from the Valle del
Cauca. Gustavo de Greiff told EL ESPECTADOR yesterday that "they
came to be instructed on the rules for drug-trafficker
surrenders, and I explained to them the entire legal framework
of the policy on surrendering to justice authorities." One of
them, Abbel, had been a high-ranking official of the U.S.
Justice Department, in the very section that handles
applications for extradition from Latin American countries.
Romulo Gomez, a Cali attorney, and Juan Fernandez
Carrasquilla, a former magistrate from Bogota, visited the
prosecutor general later on to give him the details of a formal
proposal for the drug traffickers of the Valle del Cauca to turn
themselves in. They made it clear that formally, they were only
representing Gilberto Rodriguez O. and Julio Fabio Urdinola G.,
but that soon news would be received regarding other
"colleagues."
"They mentioned that the Rodriguez Orejuela's had been
cooperating with the authorities in the war against the Medellin
Cartel, and that they had supplied data and information that
helped the authorities in their fight against Pablo Escobar
Gaviria. They wanted that to be taken into consideration," said
the prosecutor general yesterday.
But when these contacts were made public, the inmates in the
Itagui Prison, led by Roberto Escobar Gaviria, also sent the
Prosecutor General's Office a letter naming the alleged members
of the Pepes (Persecuted by Pablo Escobar) Group and demanding a
judicial investigation of them. The prosecutor general responded
that an offender's cooperation could only be taken into
consideration after he turned himself in, not before, and the
attorneys did not call back.
Neither Pepes Nor Jail
But in late 1993, after Pablo Escobar's demise, there was
talk in Cali of a plan for the "staggered surrender" of 200
major drug traffickers, in which each would benefit by providing
information on the next person to turn himself in.
At present, Justice Minister Andres Gonzalez has
acknowledged
to EL ESPECTADOR in an interview, there is only one indictment
against Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela from a U.S. court and none
arising out of Colombian investigations, so the most important
thing is for him to confess when he surrenders so that the
American case will not be pursued.
Although Rodriguez Orejuela's and Julio Fabio Urdinola's
attorneys insist that their "cooperation" in the search for
Escobar should be recognized, they deny any ties with the Pepes
and their organization to commit crimes through a cartel.
"With regard to that alleged organization (Pepes)," said De
Greiff, "the Prosecutor General's Office and the Attorney
General's Office have pursued many investigations, but there
have been no witnesses or documentary evidence to allow us to
identify its members individually."
While the letter bomb that practically blew up in Roberto
Escobar's face confirmed the Pepes' threats, a letter in which
Carlos Mario Alzate ("El Arete" [earring]) asked the director of
prisons not to take him out of his maximum-security cell at La
Picota even for judicial proceedings revealed the panic that
this group's actions have instilled in members of Escobar's
organization.
New Contacts
In open letters sent by Roberto Escobar from his cell to the
Prosecutor General's Office, two of the people accused of
belonging to the Pepes, plus one other person, met with Gustavo
de Greiff in his office on 14 January. He gave them
documentation attesting that no summons had been issued in their
names and that they were the subject of investigations to
determine their involvement in certain interrogations, pursuant
to Article 369E of the new Code of Criminal Procedure, through
which they had managed to mislead the authorities in a drug
enforcement operation in the Valle del Cauca and evade capture.
Although various witnesses interviewed this week by EL
ESPECTADOR confirmed that the head of the Drug Trafficking Unit
of the Prosecutor General's Office, Cruz Helena Aguilar
Echeverri, last Monday mediated a "peace pact" between two men
close to the late chief of the Medellin Cartel and Luis
Guillermo Angel, an alleged middleman for the "Cali people," De
Greiff emphatically declared that "the Prosecutor General's
Office did not, does not, and will not have any involvement,
either institutional or private, in any agreement between
criminal organizations."
"What happened there," explained the prosecutor general,
"was
the continuation of some witness examinations and a report by a
witness on cases he was familiar with for the purpose of
comparing his statements with those of the defendants."
What Happens Next
The house arrest requested by the drug traffickers was also
ruled out in the discussions. "What must be verified now is how
much they are willing to cooperate and what mechanisms can be
implemented to make sure they do not continue to commit crimes
through third parties," stated the prosecutor general, "but the
government must also make sure that the work being done on the
Cali and Palmira prisons will guarantee that they cannot escape."
History will be the judge as to whether this "surrender"
will
result in impunity.
[Box, p 13A]
Government Explains Surrender
The national government broke its silence on the various
interpretations of the application of Article 369E of the Code
of Criminal Procedure (CPP), which establishes measures to allow
persons implicated in crimes to cooperate fully with the
authorities. It stated its legal position on the matter in a
letter to Prosecutor General Gustavo de Greiff.
Justice Minister Andres Gonzalez Diaz explained the purpose
of the regulations and warned that some trial attorneys are
trying to manipulate the system to obtain decisions that will
make it easier for their clients to escape prosecution.
The minister took this stand after the alleged members of
the
Cali Cartel, Helmer Herrera Buitrago, Jose Olmedo Ocampo, and
Juan Carlos Ramirez, appeared before the Prosecutor General's
Office to request that an investigation be opened pursuant to
the aforementioned CPP article.
Gonzalez Diaz stated that the mere fact that a person
appears
before the appropriate authority on the pretext that he is being
sought by law enforcement is not legal grounds to issue an order
to open a preliminary investigation or hold a probable cause
hearing, and went on to say that this would put the
responsibility for initiating criminal action exclusively in the
hands of those who are trying to inveigle the authorities into
filing criminal charges against them.