Colombian drug lord Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, his son and five bodyguards hurled grenades and sprayed machine-gun fire to resist arrest before they were shot dead, police said Saturday.
The killing of Rodriguez Gacha Friday was the government's biggest blow against the cocaine barons since the administration of President Virgilio Barco launched an anti-drug offensive four months ago."It is necessary to recognize that this represents a great triumph for the government of President Barco, and for the armed forces and provides the desired relief to the country," El Tiempo, Colombia's biggest-selling paper, said in an editorial.
"The myth of invulnerability of the barons is broken."
President Bush said Saturday he was delighted by the government's action and hailed it as a "courageous effort" against drug terrorists.
Rodriguez Gacha, called the No. 2 leader in the Medellin drug cartel, died with a 9mm revolver in his hand near a truck in which he had tried escaping from a police raid on his hideout at a ranch one mile from Tolu, a Caribbean city 370 miles north of Bogota, a police communique said.
"When police followed them, they were repelled by grenades and firearms which made it necessary for the police to use their arms," said the communique issued in the nearby state capital of Sincilejo.
It said police launched the attack based on intelligence recovered from documents in late October.
Sincilejo morgue director said that Rodriguez Gacha and his son had died of multiple bullet wounds. "The cause of death was the destruction of the brain, and loss of their encephelatic mass," morgue director Luis Osorio said.
Bogota's La Prensa newspaper quoted an unidentified policeman as telling a provincial daily that Rodriguez Gacha could have possibly committed suicide after seeing his son and bodyguards being killed.
Gen. Miguel Angel Maza Marquez, the head of the country's security and intelligence agency, told a news conference Friday night that Rodriguez Gacha and Medellin cartel chieftain Pablo Escobar were responsible for a truck bomb attack in Bogota Dec. 6. The attack killed 63 people and wounded 653.
Rodriguez Gacha and Escobar were the two most wanted men in Colombia. Rewards of $233,000 were offered for information leading ot their catpure.
Rodriguez Gacha faced at least three U.S. indictments and was among the dozen most wanted Colombian drug figures sought for extradition to stand trial in the United States.