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.