Mercenary in plot to bomb drugs baron

A British mercenary today pleaded guilty to conspiring to buy a fighter jet in an elaborate plot to kill a Colombian drugs baron.

David Tomkins, 64, from Basingstoke, confessed in a Miami court to trying to buy the Vietnam-era plane to bomb a prison housing Pablo Escobar.

Tomkins faces a 33-month prison term when he is sentenced by a US court on 21 September. He was indicted in Miami in 1994 on charges of attempting to buy an A-37 Dragonfly fighter plane from undercover federal agents.

Tomkins gave the agents a downpayment of nearly ?14,000 in December 1991 for the plane, then fled the country. He told them he was a mercenary and was to be paid ?5.5 million by a rival drug cartel to assassinate Escobar.

Escobar was killed in 1993 by Colombian police after escaping from prison.

Tomkins was arrested in September after flying to Houston from London.