Escobar's Life Behind Bars

After almost a year on the run with a $400,000 bounty on his head and the largest police dragnet in Colombian history on his tail, Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria surrendered quietly to authorities last week. After handing over his pistol to officials on the outskirts of Medellin, he was whisked by helicopter to a special prison in the Andean foothills. There, overlooking his boyhood hometown of Envigado, the man regarded as Colombia's No. 1 drug thug will serve time on as yet unannounced charges.

To the chagrin of many, it was Escobar who arranged his own fate. For several weeks, he negotiated with the government through an intermediary to settle the fine points of his incarceration. He personally selected a jail that boasts virtually impregnable security. The facility has in recent weeks been encircled with an electrified 15-ft.-high chain link fence topped by barbed wire, and outfitted with four 30-ft. observation posts. All of this is not to keep Escobar in -- it is to keep his enemies out. That includes national and secret police, who will not be permitted to enter the 2.5-acre compound. Instead, officials of Envigado -- a town virtually owned by Escobar -- selected guards, who had to meet the approval of Escobar's lawyers.

The drug king will also be able to attend to his creature comforts. The prison is large enough to accommodate 40, which is about how many of Escobar's confidants are expected to follow their monarch into entombment, like Qin- dynasty soldiers. Escobar's older brother Roberto was among the first to surrender late last week and join him in his as yet Spartan quarters. There is neither heating nor air conditioning, the four large dormitories are equipped with steel double-decker beds, and the recreation room is bare save for a television set. Escobar will undoubtedly use some of his narco billions to create a more homey environment. Yet, for all the angry talk about a "five- star prison," Villa Escobar is no less a jail than the federal "country clubs" that hold America's most celebrated white-collar criminals. The walls are stone and concrete, and steel bars cover every door and window.

Still, Escobar will not be doing hard time, a fact that galls U.S. law- enforcement officials, who believe the Colombian government has bent too far to accommodate Escobar's demands in exchange for getting him off the streets. U.S. officials are also exercised by a nine-month-old presidential decree that enables traffickers to plead guilty to minimal charges in exchange for reduced sentences and guarantees that they will never be extradited. Escobar, who faces nine indictments in the U.S., including a murder charge, took no risks: he waited to surrender until after the Constitutional Assembly voted last week to bar extradition.

Although the Medellin cartel is experiencing a meltdown, there is no guarantee that Escobar will not continue to deal in drugs from behind bars. "Ironically, coming out of hiding could help him to reorder a business that became difficult to manage on the lam," says a Bogota-based U.S. narcotics expert. Skeptics say that Escobar could be free in as little as three years. That may be just the rest a tired don needs to resuscitate himself and his cartel.