Figure in Colombia Drug Money Scandal Found Shot to Death

The wife of an alleged drug trafficker whose taped telephone conversation with President Ernesto Samper seriously embarrassed the government last year was discovered shot to death, police said Friday.

They said the body of Elizabeth Sarria was found Thursday in an apartment in the capital, riddled with a dozen gunshot wounds. Her body was found alongside that of a man identified as Humberto Vargas.

A shadowy group calling itself Dignity for Colombia claimed responsibility for the killing in a telephone call to a Bogota-based television news program. The group in the past has issued demands that Samper step down.

Sarria, 46, had been summoned by the prosecutor general’s office to testify as part of a snowballing investigation into charges that Samper’s 1994 election campaign was partly financed by the Cali drug cartel.

Sarria had recently dropped out of sight and never responded to the summons.

In a taped telephone conversation that was mysteriously leaked to the media last year, Sarria could be heard offering Samper a diamond-encrusted ring as a gift for Samper’s wife. Officials say the offer was declined.