Escobar Offers to Surrender if He Gets Security Guarantees

BOGOTA, Colombia —  Pablo Escobar, the fugitive leader of the Medellin drug cartel, said in a letter that he would surrender to authorities if the government guaranteed his security.

The letter was slipped under the door of RCN radio network offices in Medellin. It was 2 1/2 pages, handwritten, signed by Escobar and stamped with his fingerprint.

“I’m willing to present myself if I’m given certain written and public guarantees,” said the letter to Atty. Gen. Gustavo de Greiff. A copy of it was sent Monday to the Associated Press.

This was the fifth time that Escobar has offered to surrender.

He also named rival drug traffickers as heads of a shadowy paramilitary group called the Pepes, or “People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar,” which had been pursuing him and his family for months until it announced last week that it was disbanding because of government reaction to its violent activities.