Mexican Lawman Pleads Innocent to Perjury

Mexican internal security officer Mario Martinez Herrera pleaded innocent Monday to a charge of lying to the federal grand jury investigating the death of U.S. drug agent Enrique S. Camarena.

Martinez, 37, remains jailed without bond in the Metropolitan Correctional Center. U.S. Magistrate Roger C. McKee scheduled a hearing on his detention for Thursday.

Martinez is accused of lying twice to the grand jury during 2 1/2 hours of testimony Friday. An indictment alleges that he lied when he said he did not attend a funeral in Guadalajara in the summer of 1984. He also is accused of lying when he denied ever being at the house in Guadalajara where, investigators say, Camarena was tortured in February, 1985.

Two notorious Mexican drug traffickers have been jailed in Mexico on charges that they masterminded Camarena’s kidnaping and slaying. Martinez, a commander in the Mexican General Directorate of Investigations and National Security, is the first person charged in a U.S. court in connection with the case.

Mexican officials so far have remained silent about Martinez’s detention.

Javier Escobar, the Mexican consul general in San Diego, said Monday that he had contacted Martinez’s defense attorney, Michael P. Murray, to inquire about the case. But Escobar said the call was a routine request for information about the jailing of a Mexican national and did not indicate that Mexican officials were taking a special interest in the case.

Murray said Monday that Martinez, against his advice, planned to go ahead today with a voice analysis by an FBI expert. Though the exam initially was canceled after the indictment, Murray said Martinez decided he had nothing to lose by submitting to the analysis. U.S. authorities reportedly want to determine if Martinez’s voice is one of those heard on a tape-recording made while Camarena was tortured.

Murray said Martinez, who was arrested a week ago as a material witness in the Camarena investigation, continues to believe that the perjury indictment is a ploy by prosecutors to keep him jailed as the investigation continues.

However, Murray said he believed prosecutors when they told him the charge was not a gambit, and that there was evidence to back it up.

“They are interested in discovering who killed a United States agent,” Murray said. “If they think my client can help them do that in any way, I suppose they are acting reasonably in wanting to have him available.”