Drug Lords ‘Marked Men,’ Thornburgh Says

There have been “sightings” outside of Colombia of some of that country’s top 12 drug kingpins sought by the United States for prosecution, and they “are marked men around the world,” Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh said Sunday.

“It may be awhile” before any of the leaders are apprehended, Thornburgh said on the CBS interview program “Face the Nation.” But he said that Colombia is expected to deliver to U.S. authorities this week Eduardo Martinez Romero, an alleged money launderer for the Medellin drug cartel. If the expectation becomes reality, he will be the first Colombian handed over for U.S. prosecution since Colombian President Virgilio Barco Vargas restored extradition under an emergency decree.

Martinez, who unwittingly led federal undercover agents to a Los Angeles money-laundering operation last spring, is wanted for trial on related charges in Atlanta.

Appearing with Thornburgh on the television show, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, called for the formation of international SWAT teams to apprehend drug cartel leaders when they travel outside Colombia.

‘Many of Them Have Fled’

“Obviously, many of them--if not all of them--have fled Colombia now,” Biden said.

Federal law enforcement sources familiar with the Colombian situation said that they do not share Biden’s certainty that the cartel leaders have fled their homeland, contending that the vast resources under the traffickers’ control have enabled them to avoid capture inside Colombia in earlier crackdowns.

“Any time you raise the profile” of the drug traffickers, as Barco’s crackdown did, “you encourage snitches (informants) and ordinary citizens to provide information, and this is what’s been happening,” one source said. “Now this all has to be sifted through.”

Thornburgh and Biden agreed that extradition to the United States for prosecution is the action that the Colombian traffickers most fear. “They apparently will go to any length to avoid being brought to an American courtroom,” Biden said.

Extraditing Martinez this week, as Thornburgh predicted, would mark a significant accomplishment, because conditions attached to Barco’s extradition decree require the approval of more than six Colombian Cabinet ministers and give the subject of the order the opportunity to appeal.

Would Be Given Asylum

Thornburgh said that, if reports are true in Colombia that the beleaguered nation’s new justice minister, Monica de Greiff, has resigned or plans to resign next month after returning from a trip to the United States, she would be given asylum here “as other refugees from terrorism and the kind of violence that affects Colombia have always been.”

After the TV show, Thornburgh said that he had not met with De Greiff, who took the post July 16 and who, according to news reports in Colombia, left for Washington on Friday. She was scheduled to meet with U.S. officials here this week to discuss extradition details and U.S. aid to help protect her country’s judges, prosecutors and police from attack by the cartel forces.

Efforts to reach her Sunday through U.S. officials and Colombian diplomats in Washington were unsuccessful. An Administration official who spoke late Sunday to the Associated Press said that De Greiff is in the United States, but the official refused to say whether she had resigned her Cabinet post.

Thornburgh said earlier that De Greiff’s resignation “would not be surprising . . . because of the tragic record of violence and intimidation that has almost effectively neutralized law enforcement” in Colombia.

The State Department issued a travel warning Saturday night, asking Americans to postpone trips to Colombia. It said that the crackdown on narcotics traffickers “could raise the level of violence in some areas, and American citizens--even though not specifically targeted--could find themselves caught up in random violence.”

No Specifications

Both Thornburgh and William J. Bennett, director of the White House Office of Drug Control Policy, who appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” declined to specify how President Bush proposes to finance the stepped-up war on drugs that he will announce Sept. 5.

But Biden called for enacting a “sin tax” on cigarettes, beer, wine and liquor to pay for the multibillion-dollar effort, rather than diverting funds from other government programs, as the Administration has indicated it will propose.

Biden contended that upping the taxes by a nickel on a six-pack of beer, six cents on a bottle of wine, 40 cents on a gallon of liquor and two cents on a pack of cigarettes “would pay for the entire drug effort and the entire drug bill we didn’t pay for last year.”

The comments by Biden, who has been conducting a series of Judiciary Committee hearings on the performance of the government’s anti-narcotics program, indicate that Senate Democrats will seek to influence the shape of the government’s expanded efforts, especially in the light of polls showing that drugs have become the leading domestic problem.

Bennett, who submitted the proposals from which Bush shaped the drug package, said that it will call “for the redeployment and reapportioning of funds from different accounts and moving funds into this effort on drugs.”

“For the moment, other things may have to wait so that we can take this initiative,” Bennett said.

Pressed on the question of raising taxes to meet the drug threat, despite Bush’s campaign pledge of no tax increases, Bennett said that he would not be reluctant, noting that “crack is worse than taxes.” But he added that he does not think it will be necessary to raise taxes because “there are things on the table that we’re paying for that just don’t have the priority” that drugs command.