‘Drugs baron' makes first US court appearance

A former leader of Colombia’s defunct Medellin cartel is in a ‘‘living hell’’ of solitary confinement after being extradited to the United States to face cocaine trafficking charges, his lawyer said yesterday.

Fabio Ochoa Vasquez, the highest-profile Colombian extradited to face US justice since 1987, pleaded innocent at his first US court appearance to charges that he helped smuggle 30 tons of cocaine a month and spirited away the profits.