By The
Associated Press
Edited by Michelle Gamer
Friday, Janiiary 12, 1996 Page 2
Drug cartel kingpin escapes
BOGOTA, Colombia — One of
the top three leaders of the world’s
biggest drug gang escaped Thursday
from a maximum-security prison in
Bogota.
Jose Santacruz Londono, a kingpin
in the Cali cartel, removed a one-way
mirror from an interrogation room and
slipped through the opening, appar
ently with the help of accomplices,
said Norbcrto Pelaez, head of the na
tional prison system.
He then drove out of the La Picota
prison in a getaway car disguised as a
prosecutor’s car, officials said. Pros
ecutors’ cars are not checked when
they enter or leave the prison.
RCN radio said his absence was
noticed during a 4 p.m. head count.
President Ernesto Samper called
an emergency meeting of his minis
ters Thursday evening to discuss the
escape.
The assistant chief of police led a
team of officers, including an elite
squad known as the Search Block, to
recapture the drug lord. Police set up
roadblocks in some areas and stepped
up security at Bogota airports.
The national police chief offered a
$2 million reward for information lead
ing to Santacruz’s recapture, RCN
radio reported.
“We’re shocked by his escape, but
if he was captured once, we can cap
ture him a second time,” said Justice
Minister Carlos Medellin, who was
sworn in Thursday.
The escape also is likely to irk U.S.
official s, who bel ieve Colombia ’ s jus
tice system is too lenient on drug traf
fickers. The United States has indicted
cartel kingpins, but Colombia’s 1991
constitution forbids extradition of its
citizens.
Santacruz, 53, was arrested last
July 4 in a plush Bogota steak house.
He was awaiting trial on charges of
illicit enrichment, conspiracy and the
murder of a state governor.
During a three-month period start
ing last June, police put six of the
seven leaders ofthc Cali cartel behind
bars, including brothers Miguel and
Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, the
cartel’s other top leaders.
The remaining five were all ac
counted for in jail on Thursday, said
Miller Rubio, spokesman for the na
tional prison system. The other drug
kingpin at large is Helmer Herrera,
who is believed to head the cartel’s
military wing.
Santacruz, known as “Chepe,” was
believed responsible for consolidat
ing the carter’s distribution network
in New York years ago. He has also
been linked to the New York murder
ofjoumalist Manuel de Dios Unanue,
who was investigating cartel opera
tions in the city.
Santacruz was involved with the
Rodriguez brothers in the late 1960s
in a gang accused of kidnapping two
Swiss citizens for ransom. They were
later released.
Known in those days as “the Stu
dent” because he had studied engi
neering, Santacruz went into the con
struction business and is said to own
thousands of apartments in Cali and
hundreds of rural properties.
In the 1980s, Santacruz used his
immense wealth to build a full-size
replica of an elite Cali social club after
its members refused to admit him.
The Cali cartel is responsible for
most of the cocaine distributed in the
world.
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Clinton suggests delaying
Medicare fix until fall
WASHINGTON —- President
Clinton outlined a possible split
verdict Thursday for budget talks
with Republicans, suggesting the
two sides settle on an overall plan
for erasing deficits while submit
ting major policy decisions on
Medicare and Medicaid to the vot
ers next fall.
“We should not make the per
fect the enemy of the good,” Clinton
told reporters at a full-dress news
conference, his first of the 1996
campaign year.
“We should agree on everything
we can,” he added.
Clinton repeatedly expressed
optimism that an overall balanced
budget accord was within reach af
ter 50 hours of face-to-face talks
with Senate Majority Leader Bob
Dole and House Speaker Newt
Gingrich. The next session is sched
uled for Wednesday at the White
House.
“... I know we have come too far
to let this opportunity slip away,”
he said.
“Whether Medicaid should be a
block grant instead of a guarantee
from the nation to our poor and
disabled children and to seniors in
nursing homes, that’s something I
think could be deferred to the elec
tion.”
“I knoiv we have come
too far to let this
opportunity slip
away. ”
BILL CLINTON
President
Gingrich did not reply directly
to Clinton’s suggestion when he
held a rebuttal news conference a
few moments later in Seattle, Wash.
Instead, he sharply criticized the
president for accusing the GOP of
seeking deep cuts in Medicare and
Medicaid.
“I found it a disappointing press
conference, a press conference that
I think did not help get to a balanced
budget at all,” he said, although he
added he expected the talks to re
sume as scheduled next week.
Using an easel and oversized
paper to illustrate his points, the
Georgia Republican said spending
on Medicare and Medicaid would
each rise substantially over seven
years in the most recent Republican
budget offer.
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Manatees still
dying off despite
group efforts
RIVIERA BEACH, Fla.—Just off
U.S. 1, in a run-down neighborhood
dominated by the smokestacks and
humming blue coils of a power plant,
Reade Gilbert presses his face against
a chain-link fence and points at
Florida’s primeval past.
“There he is!” cries Reade, 6, as a
manatee comes up for air. “Look at Iris
nose, his nose!” * -
In the winter, manatee-watching is
a popular pastime around Florida’s
power plants and mineral springs.
Despite federal, state and local ef
forts, the beasts are dying off at a high
rate.
Statistics released last week showed
that 9 percent of the known popula
tion, or 201 manatees, died in 1995,
the second-highest number of deaths
since the state began counting the ani
mals in 1974.
At least 42 of the deaths were at
tributed to boats, which gash the ani
mals with their propellers or drown
them by colliding with them.
Nebraskan
Editor J. Christopher Hain
472-1766
Managing Editor Doug Kouma
Assoc. News Editors Matt Waite
Sarah Scalet
Opinion Page Editor Doug Peters
Wire Editor Michelle Garner
Copy Desk Editor Tim Pearson
Sports Editor Mitch Sherman
Arts & Entertainment
Editor Jeff Randall
Photo Director Staci McKee
Night News Editors Rebecca Oltmans
Melanie Branded
Anne Hjersman
Beth Narans
http://www.unl.edu/DailyNeb/
FAX NUMBER 472-1761
The Daily Nebraskan(USPS 144-080) is
published by the UNL Publications Board,
Nebraska Union 34, 1400 R St., Lincoln, NE
68588-0448, Monday through Friday during
the academic year; weekly during summer
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Readers are encouraged to submit story
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Postmaster: Send address changes to the
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ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT
_1995 DAILY NEBRASKAN_
