SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) -- Dominican authorities on
                  Tuesday handed over to U.S. authorities a man accused of killing a New York
                  City police officer in 1988.

                  Pablo Almonte Lluberes, arrested by Dominican police in November, left on a
                  U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration plane bound for New York, escorted by
                  two marshals and two DEA agents, said local anti-drug police director Col.
                  Jacobo Mateo Moquete. The plane left at 10:35 a.m. EST (1535 GMT).

                  In 1988, police officer Michael Buczek, 24, was gunned down in New York's
                  Washington Heights neighborhood after he and his partner chased several people
                  suspected of drug dealing from the lobby of a building, New York police said.

                  After the shooting, Almonte Lluberes and another suspect, Daniel Mirambeaux,
                  fled to the Dominican Republic. Mirambeaux was apprehended in Santo
                  Domingo, but leapt to his death before he could be extradited to New York to
                  face a first-degree murder charge.

                  Almonte Lluberes has been indicted in absentia on a charge of second-degree
                  murder by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. Almonte Lluberes is the
                  brother of a high-ranking Dominican police official.

                  In July, U.S. Rep. Benjamin Gilman, a Republican from New York, halted the
                  transfer of a $3 million buoy tender from the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation
                  Agency to the Dominican Republic until the Caribbean nation extradited Almonte
                  Lluberes.

                  As chairman of the International Relations Committee, Gilman has the authority
                  to halt certain types of U.S. assistance to foreign governments.