In Mexico, allegations of corruption caught on tape
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Anti-crime activists in Mexico say they have audio proof that the former attorney general of coastal Tabasco state was in league with drug traffickers while in office.
An audio recording aired this week purportedly contains a telephone conversation between the former state prosecutor, Gustavo Rosario Torres, and a deputy as they discussed an expected payment from an apparent cocaine deal.
The recording was played during a news conference by activist Jose Antonio Ortega Sanchez, who heads a Mexico City-based group called the Citizens Council for Public Safety and Criminal Justice. It is one of two audio recordings that Ortega’s group and a second organization say are evidence of corruption by Rosario, who served as Tabasco’s prosecutor before he resigned last month.
One of the recordings purportedly captures a conversation between Rosario and the deputy state attorney general, Alex Alvarez, in which the two men discuss an awaited delivery of cash.
The scratchy-sounding audio files have been posted, with added transcription in the original Spanish, on the website of a Mexican online magazine called Reporte Indigo.
Rosario, a member of the once-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, who headed the state development office before becoming attorney general in early 2007, denies that the recordings are authentic.
In a radio interview this week, Rosario said he was not certain if the voice on the tape is his, but suggested the recording was a collection of sound bits assembled to falsely implicate him in drug-trafficking. He called the recording a “grotesque montage.”
In one section, the voice purportedly belonging to Rosario asks, “You know what I’m talking about, right?”
“No, uh.”
“The cocaine,” says the first man, who goes on to describe an agreed-upon payment schedule: “100,000 now and 100,000 within a week.” He does not specify the currency.
The second recording is allegedly of a conversation between Alvarez and a lawyer the activists allege is acting on behalf of drug traffickers from the so-called Gulf cartel, one of Mexico’s main smuggling groups and a key target of President Felipe Calderon’s 20-month-old offensive against organized crime.
Tabasco Gov. Andres Granier Melo, a close political ally and member of the PRI, has defended Rosario, saying the recording could easily have been faked. The governor’s office issued a statement this week saying Rosario had served as attorney general “with loyalty, honesty, professionalism and adherence to the law.”
Ortega and a second anti-crime activist, Guillermo Velasco Arzac, this week filed a formal complaint against Rosario, Alvarez and the lawyer, Francisco Javier Estrada Sanchez, calling on federal authorities to open an investigation. The four-page complaint alleges that the recordings demonstrate Rosario’s ties to organized crime.
The activists said the recordings were given to them, but did not say by whom.
The federal attorney general’s office has not commented on the case.
Rosario, who once was mayor of the municipality that includes the state capital, Villahermosa, resigned as attorney general last month, citing personal reasons.
Tabasco, which sits on the Gulf of Mexico, has witnessed increasingly severe violence, including decapitations and intimidation of journalists, that has been attributed to rivalries between drug-trafficking groups over access to smuggling routes. A traditional PRI stronghold, it is known for a history of political corruption.
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-- Ken Ellingwood in Mexico City