LAWYER ALLEGES DRUG ARRESTS STEM FROM JAILED COLOMBIAN'S CONSPIRACY

In the past five months, U.S. agents have seized seven vessels and more
than 17 tons of cocaine off the coast of Ecuador in an investigation
being run from Tampa and brought about 40 crewmen here to await trial.

But authorities have refused to discuss the operation, which involves
the U.S. Coast Guard, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S.
Navy.

Tuesday, a Tampa attorney said the seizures may be the result of a
conspiracy set in motion by a jailed alleged leader of Colombia's
notorious Cali drug cartel.

Danny Castillo, defending some of the crewmen on two of the seized
ships, the Rebelde and Layneyd, leveled the assertion in a motion filed
in U.S. District Court seeking the names of confidential government
informants in the case.

Castillo said he believes Jose Castrillon-Henao, a suspected leader of
the Cali cartel who was extradited to the United States in 1998, is
trying to win a sentence reduction by setting up the drug shipments.
Castrillon-Henao was alleged to have been in charge of overseas
shipments for the Cali cartel.

Castillo said the U.S. government doesn't care if the crewmen being
arrested have been set up, that agents only want to boost their seizure
and conviction rates.

``It is more than mere coincidence that seven boats have been seized
since Castrillon-Henao's [last court hearing] in January,'' Castillo
says in the motion. ``Surely the head of the maritime operations for
the Cali Cartel would have the ability, power, and resources to summon
assistance from fellow Cartel members to sacrifice poor fisherman from
the Colombian docks.''

Sacrificing 17 tons of cocaine would be nothing to the cartel, Castillo
added.

``Castrillon-Henao is assisting the government to manufacture these
other cases in order to make him look good to the sentencing judge, at
the same time padding the government's statistics on drug seizures,''
the motion states.

Castillo also said the busts may be politically motivated to justify a
recent $1.6 million U.S. aid package to Colombia.

Said spokesman Steve Cole of the U.S. attorney's office: ``It's really
inappropriate for me to make any comment on a pending case.'' A check
Tuesday night of available public records yielded little information on
Castrillon-Henao.

Attached to Castillo's motion are federal court documents showing that
Castrillon-Henao was arrested in Panama and extradited to the United
States in June 1998.

Hillsborough County jail records show that he was held briefly there on
charges of manufacturing, distributing and possessing cocaine, and then
released, apparently to federal custody, a few weeks later.

The documents in Castillo's motion show that Castrillon-Henao
subsequently was sent to a federal prison. They also show a number of
sealed documents being added to his court file, and numerous
continuances in his trial. The last was granted three months ago, and
the case is pending, the documents show.