Notorious Colombian Drug Lord, Pablo Escobar, Offers to Surrender : Medellin Cartel: The fugitive tells a priest he will surrender this week if his safety is guaranteed.

After years of terrorizing Colombia with bombings, kidnapings and assassinations, Pablo Escobar, the world’s most notorious drug lord, has stunned his violence-weary countrymen again--this time with an offer to surrender.

The announcement, 21 months into the most determined manhunt ever mounted by Colombian police, came last week from an eccentric, 82-year-old Roman Catholic priest who said he met with the billionaire cocaine dealer at a luxurious ranch hide-out and knelt with him in prayer.

“He is tired of hiding and he believes that Colombia can judge him with wisdom and justice,” said Father Rafael Garcia Herreros. If the government halts its pursuit and takes certain steps to assure his safety, the priest said, Escobar will turn himself in by the middle of this week.

Colombian officials, police authorities and ordinary citizens say the offer sounds serious. But because the drug war has produced as much controversy as bloodshed, they differ on whether a surrender by the Medellin Cartel boss on his own terms would mean victory for him or for the government.

Escobar, 41, is accused of creating the largest international network for the production and delivery of cocaine and of directing a war of terror against anyone in Colombia who speaks out against his trade or in favor of extraditing its practitioners to the United States.

Besides facing eight indictments in the United States, he is wanted in Colombia for the murders of a justice minister, an attorney general, a newspaper publisher and three presidential candidates, and for the bombings of an airliner and a police headquarters in which hundreds of people died.

To President Cesar Gaviria, getting Escobar behind bars would be a crowning achievement from his strategy of offering reduced prison terms and immunity from extradition to drug traffickers who come in and confess. At least 10 traffickers have done so, including three of Escobar’s top lieutenants: the brothers Fabio, Jorge Luis and Juan David Ochoa.

A senior Colombian official said Escobar’s demands “don’t seem very difficult to achieve.” The drug lord wants to surrender with several associates at a jail built for them in Envigado, the Medellin suburb where he grew up and is still popular. He refuses to be imprisoned with members of the cartel’s death squads who turned against him, and he wants to be guarded by the army instead of the police.

In addition, Escobar demands punishment of 17 policemen he accuses of violating the “human rights” of his associates. The government says 12 of the officers are already under investigation.

What gave credence to Escobar’s offer was the release last Monday of two kidnaped Colombian journalists, the last of 10 hostages held by the cartel in the latest phase of the drug war. Newspaper headlines, decorated with doves of peace, portrayed a national mood of euphoria and even forgiveness.

“This is a clear sign that Pablo Escobar is going to surrender to Colombian justice and this will be a very important event in the process of pacification that so many yearn for in this country,” said Justice Minister Jaime Giraldo Angel.

Another government official said Escobar wants to surrender because “his organization is crumbling, his business is coming apart. The surrender of the Ochoas was a major blow. It leaves him not too many options.”

That view is not shared by U.S. and Colombian narcotics officials, who suspect the Ochoas of running their business from jail and believe that Escobar could do likewise, with enhanced personal security.

Under the government’s policy, softened several times since it was announced last September, any drug trafficker who surrenders, turns over ill-gotten gains, informs on his associates and behaves himself in jail can get up to half his term knocked off for any confessed crimes. Since Colombia’s maximum cumulative sentence is 30 years, government officials say, Escobar is almost certain to spend at least 15 years in prison.

Some Colombians suspect the Medellin boss has made a secret deal with the government for greater leniency. Or, they believe, he is using the priest to polish his image, trying to influence a Constituent Assembly now in session to pardon drug criminals. The assembly, which is rewriting Colombia’s constitution, is expected soon to abolish extradition, a key weapon in the drug war.

“Little by little he is winning,” complained a Colombian law-enforcement official. “Everything is being bent to his wishes. I doubt he will spend long in jail. This is like a bad soap opera.”

Escobar’s lawyers began quietly discussing his surrender with the Justice Ministry after the last of the Ochoa brothers came in Feb. 16. There is speculation that he held back to make sure the Ochoas, jailed in another part of Medellin, would not be harmed.

Father Garcia said he was approached last month by a messenger who said Escobar might be persuaded to surrender through the mediation of a priest. On April 18, viewers of Garcia’s nightly television show, “God’s Minute,” heard a cryptic monologue in which the priest asked “the sea” for guidance on whether to get involved.

Evidently, “the sea” approved; the priest visited the Ochoas in prison and asked for a meeting with Escobar. Later an emissary took him to an Ochoa farm, where he said he was picked up May 12 and driven for three hours in three different cars along mountain roads to the Medellin ranch. The heavy-set Escobar, he said, looked healthy, sported a “Fidel Castro-style beard” and appeared to have altered his face with surgery.

Father Garcia said that Escobar did not say what would happen to his business during his confinement. But he called the drug lord “a Christian believer” who wants to “leave the country in peace.”