U.S. Decries Latin Drug-Dealer ‘Havens’

U.S. Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh complained here Thursday that drug traffickers have apparently found “safe havens” in some countries, and he pressed U.S. requests here to extradite Colombian traffickers wanted for trial in the United States.

A 1987 ruling by the Colombian Supreme Court invalidated a U.S.-Colombian extradition treaty on technical grounds. Major drug traffickers have avoided trial in Colombia, cowing the weak justice system with murder, bribes and threats.

Thornburgh said he has made it clear in meetings with President Virgilio Barco Vargas and other Colombian officials “that we hope some way can be found to honor the extradition treaty.” He said he and Barco had a “full and frank” discussion of that and other drug-related problems.

Attorney general since August, Thornburgh was finishing what he said was a tour of the world’s three major cocaine-producing countries, Bolivia, Peru and Colombia. In a press conference at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, he was asked by a reporter asked for his reaction to an opinion survey by local radio stations showing that three-fourths of those polled were against extradition of Colombians to the United States.

Thornburgh said the United States is like any country that seeks custody of persons charged with breaking its laws. “We are disappointed when these persons find what are apparently safe havens in other countries,” he said, referring to drug traffickers.

In all three South American countries he visited, Thornburgh said he conveyed the Bush Administration’s “very strong commitment to the reduction of demand for drugs in the United States.” Officials in all three countries have contended that strong U.S. demand for cocaine makes it difficult for their governments to control trafficking.

Thornburgh said that U.S. policy puts increased emphasis on international cooperation to fight the drug traffic.

“No one country can deal with the problem within its own borders on its own,” he said.

Also at the press conference was John Lawn, head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, who denied that the DEA has provided any information linking Gen. Jose Guillermo Medina, former commander of Colombia’s national police force, to drug traffickers.

Medina resigned in January and has since asked the Colombian Supreme Court to investigate a report by Time magazine that he was removed because of suspicions that he received money from cocaine baron Pablo Escobar.

Thornburgh said he knew “nothing of the facts of that report. We regard that as a matter of internal consideration by the Colombian government.”