Lara has five days to appeal the ruling against him. Otherwise, he will be put aboard a plane to face heroin-smuggling charges in a federal court in New York by the end of next week, becoming the first Colombian extradited in nearly a decade. Also facing possible extradition is Fabio Ochoa, a former Medellin cartel leader arrested October 13 along with 29 other Colombians. Ochoa faces a U.S. indictment for his alleged role in a smuggling empire said to have exported as much as 30 tons of cocaine a month. On Tuesday, a much smaller bomb ripped though a moving car in Bogota, injuring two judicial investigators and six bystanders.
Officials suspect Marxist guerrillas triggered that blast.
No Colombian drug traffickers have been extradited since 1991, when Bogota banned the practice following a terror campaign waged in part by the late Medellin cartel drug lord Pablo Escobar. Various drug lords have been indicted by U.S. prosecutors for their role in the U.S. cocaine trade. Experts estimate that Escobar once supplied 80 percent of the cocaine used in the United States. Escobar's influence eventually crumbled, and he went into hiding. He was shot to death by Colombian police and soldiers in 1993.