Outspoken Official Casualty of Drug War : Colombia: Trusted top prosecutor retires under siege. He drew fire from U.S. for saying prohibition is hopeless.

When Gustavo de Greiff was appointed Colombia’s first general prosecutor July 1, 1991, he was hailed as a man of impeccable credentials and integrity.

And when, three weeks later, he warned President Cesar Gaviria that Medellin cocaine boss Pablo Escobar was continuing to traffic in drugs from jail, he soared into public opinion as a formidable crusader, the golden hope for the nation’s notoriously corrupt judicial system.

But De Greiff left office last week under siege, forced out by a Supreme Court decision that he must step down at 65, but which De Greiff says was politically motivated.

U.S. and Colombian officials who attacked him for advocating the legalization of drugs are delighted. Officials furious with De Greiff’s policy of plea bargaining with Colombia’s biggest cocaine dealers, the Cali cartel, are breathing a sigh of relief.

The U.S. quarrel with De Greiff reflects two conflicting visions of the drug problem: De Greiff, echoing many Colombians, argues that the drug war is hopeless, while U.S. authorities insist on a major crackdown.

Significantly, Alfonso Valdivieso, De Greiff’s replacement, preaches a hard line: He opposes the legalization of drugs. He takes over as new President Ernesto Samper is under international pressure to signal his own resolve to fight drug trafficking, after reports his campaign may have received cocaine money.

“I talked about studying legalization as a way of putting an end to the obscene profits of drug traffickers,” De Greiff said in an interview. “They (U.S. officials) didn’t like that. I talked about opening the door of justice to criminals who wanted to surrender in exchange for reduced sentences established by law. They didn’t like that either.”

Respected by most Colombians as honest and progressive, yet also known for his combative and brash style, De Greiff became a permanent irritant for the U.S. and Colombian governments when he began to travel abroad, arguing that the prohibition of drugs was a 20-year failure.

The former judge and university rector insisted that drug seizures had not had an impact on price or supply, while production and consumption of drugs had increased. Profits from the illegal trade, he pointed out, sow the seed of corruption.

U.S. officials were outraged that Colombia’s top crime fighter stood for legalization and a plea-bargaining policy that could give the heads of the massive Cali cocaine empire--believed to control 80% of the world cocaine trade--prison sentences of less than five years.

The U.S. government suspended a longstanding policy of evidence-sharing with the Colombian prosecutor’s office. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Foreign Relations subcommittee on terrorism, narcotics and international relations, publicly accused De Greiff of threatening to bring about his nation’s capitulation to the Cali cartel.

Many Colombians rallied to De Greiff’s defense. Editorials in the local press accused the United States of trying to force their nation into a bloody war against drug traffickers. It is a war, they say, in which thousands of innocent Colombians have already been killed because of U.S. drug use.

“Colombians believe in De Greiff because of his independence. The U.S. hates him--or rather, loathes him--because of it,” said Alfredo Molano, a Colombian expert on the drug trade.

A recent poll showed De Greiff to be Colombia’s most trusted public official. De Greiff, who calls the U.S. attitude toward Colombia “imperialism” and the U.S. attacks against him “McCarthyism of the worst kind,” is grim about the future.

The allegations that Samper’s campaign accepted $4 million in drug money--a charge Samper denied--will limit the new president’s options, De Greiff said. He added, “U.S. pressure leaves the new government very little field of action, because if it tries to apply the plea-bargaining policy, the U.S. will immediately say, ‘Look, this government has connections with drug traffickers.’ ”