3 Israelis accused of illegal training

Interpol issued an international arrest warrant Tuesday for three Israelis accused of training private armies of Colombian drug cartels and right-wing death squads, authorities said.

Yair Klein, Melnik Ferri and Tzedaka Abraham were being sought on charges of criminal conspiracy and instruction in terrorism, said Oscar Galvis, spokesman for Colombia's domestic intelligence agency.

The men, who face nearly 11 years in prison if convicted, are accused of helping set up training camps to teach private armies working for drug lords about explosives and high-profile killings. The armies later grew into Colombia's right-wing death squads.

Klein, a former lieutenant colonel in the Israeli army, appeared in a 1998 video used to train far-right squads. In 1991, he was convicted and fined $13,400 by an Israeli court for selling arms to Colombia's illegal groups.

In a recent interview with Caracol television, Klein denied working with the cocaine cartels but confirmed that he did instruct the far-right militias in how to eliminate the leftist insurgency.

He said he was originally hired _ with the Colombian Ministry of Defense's blessing _ to organize security for the banana industry in the northern region of Uraba.

Klein said, however, that his students "were not trained to kill, only trained to defend themselves."

The Medellin cartel, headed by Escobar, pioneered the use of unrestrained violence in its dealings with enemies and allies alike.