home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- <text id=89TT0500>
- <title>
- Feb. 20, 1989: A Curious Retirement
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Feb. 20, 1989 Betrayal:Marine Spy Scandal
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 44
- A Curious Retirement
- </hdr><body>
- <p> When General Jose Guillermo Medina Sanchez, 53, retired as
- head of Colombia's 80,000-member National Police last month, the
- country's law-enforcement officials turned out in full dress
- uniform, complete with ceremonial gilt swords. But Medina's
- departure was not quite so honorable as it seemed. Colombian
- police officials have told TIME that Medina was fired on orders
- from President Virgilio Barco Vargas after the general came
- under suspicion of being on the payroll of Pablo Escobar
- Gaviria, patriarch of one of the leading families of the
- Medellin drug cartel.
- </p>
- <p> After Escobar narrowly escaped capture in an army raid on
- one of his estates last year, Colombian officials suspected
- that he might have been tipped off by Medina. A military
- surveillance team subsequently was assigned to tail the general.
- The spying operation reportedly established ties between Medina
- and both Escobar and another drug baron, Gonzalo Rodriguez
- Gacha, nicknamed "El Mexicano." Apparently not certain that the
- evidence would hold up in court, the government allowed Medina
- to retire. Two days after Medina's successor, General Miguel
- Antonio Gomez Padilla, took over, the National Police launched
- Operation Primavera, the most successful strike against cocaine
- producers in Colombian history.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-