Perks and pains of a drug lord's son

[Lucinda F. Boyd]

Sebastian Marroquin, son of Columbian drug head Pablo Escobar poses for a photo on April 25, 2012, in downtown Calgary, Alberta. (STUART DRYDEN/QMI AGENCY)

CALGARY -- His fear growing with every passing second, Sebastian Marroquin tried to get his father to hang up the phone.

But Pablo Escobar wouldn't listen. The world's most notorious drug lord was on the run following a prison break, and apparently lonely for the voice of his only son.

"I think my dad was breaking his golden rule about not using the phone," Marroquin said.

"We were just answering questions for an interview with a Columbian magazine and I kept wanting to hang up, because by then I thought I knew the answers for this interview and I was afraid and sure the police were going to track him down.

"But my father insisted on staying on the line. His last words to me were, 'I'm going to call you later'."

In fact, those were among Escobar's last words ever.

Within minutes of hanging up, the Columbian cocaine kingpin was dead, gunned down by Colombian National Police who'd traced that final phone call to corner the billionaire crime baron.

If Marroquin feels any guilt about that last call, it pales in comparison to the guilt he has shouldered as the son of a man who ordered the deaths of hundreds of people.

It's dealing with that guilt that brings Marroquin to Calgary.

The man formerly known as Juan Pablo Escobar is here for a screening of his film, Sins of my Father, being shown Thursday for National Victims of Violence Awareness Week.

The film, presented by the Calgary John Howard Society and Spiritual Directions Centre, sees Marroquin personally apologizing to the sons of two men his father murdered.

Now working in Argentina as an architect, Marroquin was haunted by violence at an early age, even as he reaped the benefits of the bloody drug trade, including a zoo stocked with hippos.

At 14, he confronted the head of Columbia's largest drug cartel to ask why so many had to die.

"Bombs were exploding all over Columbia and so I questioned him because a lot of innocent people were dying -- but he was always full of excuses," Marroquin said through a translator.

"He reminded me that the first bombs that exploded were against me, my sister and my mom, and that he hadn't invented narco-terrorism as a weapon for fighting."

Maybe not, but leading up to his death in 1993, Escobar perfected it, going so far as to blow up 107 innocents aboard a commercial jet in hopes of killing one politician.

Evil is the only way to describe such a cold-blooded killer, yet his son remembers tender moments with the man who at one time supplied 80% of the U.S. cocaine market.

Marroquin recalls his favourite memory of dad, who was a doting family man.

"I think it was when he fooled me to stop using my baby bottle," Marroquin said.

"So he bought me a balloon, and asked me if I'd like to see how high my baby bottle could fly -- of course I was really excited, and I even helped him tie the balloon to the bottle.

"Of course it flew away, and when I couldn't reach it, I started crying. But that was the day I stopped using a baby bottle."

If it sounds like a typical fatherhood, Marroquin says being Pablo Escobar's son was often anything but.

Lavish vacations and helping to choose new zoo animals by leafing through National Geographic magazine were among the quirks of being the heir to the world's largest crime fortune.

His dad liked to win public favour by sponsoring young soccer teams and building homes in poor neighbourhoods, but the real spoils were for his own kids.

Marroquin remembers a plane arriving during one birthday party.

"He'd sent a plane to Switzerland to pick up fresh chocolates for me," Marroquin said.

The riches vanished with his father's death, seized by the government as Marroquin fled with his sister and mom to Argentina under new identities.

For years, the son stayed silent -- but the need to atone for dad's sins led him to make the film, and the heartfelt apology to the sons of Rodrigo Lara and Luis Carlos Galan, politicians killed by his dad.

Marroquin can say sorry for his father's deeds, but he wishes he could rewind the clock, to tell his father the life that he killed and was killed just for wasn't worth it.

"I would tell him to go to university, because a little education would have made a big difference in his life, just as it did in my life," Marroquin said.

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