WORLD IN BRIEF : COLOMBIA : Judge Assassinated; Drug Lords Blamed

An assassin apparently sent by drug barons stepped off a motorcycle and killed a federal judge with six gunshots as he waited outside his home in Medellin for a ride to work, witnesses said. An anonymous telephone caller to Caracol Radio in Medellin, base of the country’s most notorious cocaine cartel, said “the Extraditables” killed Judge Hector Jimenez Rodriguez in retaliation for the extradition of Colombians wanted on drug charges in the United States. Jimenez, 55, spent 20 years as a judge in the federal appeals court at Medellin, 150 miles northwest of Bogota. All federal judges in the city have handled drug matters, but it was not known immediately whether Jimenez had recent cases involving the Medellin cartel.