Mexico Irritated at U.S. Charge That Judge Took Bribe

The government of Mexico has begun to show its displeasure at reports from the United States that a Mexican Supreme Court justice took bribe money from the accused killer of U.S. narcotics agent Enrique S. Camarena.

On Tuesday, President Miguel de la Madrid, in words that aides described as a partial response, said: “This is like the pot calling the kettle black. Statistics show that the damaging problem of drug trafficking originates, is nurtured by and benefits the great industrialized markets, mainly that of the United States.

Affidavit Filed

“Our government does not accept unilateral blame in the matter (of drug trafficking),” De la Madrid said. “First, because we don’t want this cancer to invade our society and destroy or poison our children, and, second, because we are responsible members of the international community.”

Last week, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration filed an affidavit in a U.S. District Court in San Diego that accused Mexican Supreme Court Justice Luis Fernandez Doblado of taking money from a lawyer for Rafael Caro Quintero.

Caro Quintero is the lead suspect in the 1985 torture-murders of Camarena, a DEA agent and U.S. citizen carrying out investigations in Mexico at the time, and Alfredo Zavala, a Mexican pilot and DEA informant.

Caro Quintero is in a Mexico City jail awaiting trial on murder and drug smuggling charges.

In the past, Mexican officials have responded quickly and heatedly to accusations made in the United States that Mexican officials tolerate and profit from drug traffic into the United States. This time, the response has been somewhat low-key, apparently reflecting Mexican uncertainty as to just what basis there is for the DEA allegations.

Last Friday, Mexican Atty. Gen. Sergio Garcia Ramirez sent a letter to the U.S. ambassador here asking for details of the charges against the Supreme Court justice. On Monday, the ambassador, Charles J. Pilliod, phoned Garcia to tell him that a response was being prepared, a U.S. Embassy spokesman said.

In addition, the Mexican Supreme Court gave Fernandez Doblado a vote of confidence last week and requested that Mexico’s Foreign Ministry protest the charges. No such protest, normally delivered through the U.S. Embassy in Washington, has been handed to the U.S. government.

Meeting in Tijuana

According to the DEA affidavit, Fernandez Doblado and “several Mexico City judges” have received payoffs to clear Caro Quintero and another accused drug smuggler, Ernesto Fonseca, in the Camarena murder. The DEA charged that Francisco Alatorre, a lawyer for Caro Quintero and Fonseca, met with Fernandez Doblado in Tijuana in May, 1986.

The DEA has seized more than $3 million in cash and assets belonging to Alatorre and his wife in San Diego and other U.S. cities on the grounds that he may have been engaged in laundering drug booty.

Fernandez Doblado declined to discuss the DEA charges with The Times.

Lawyer Alatorre, in an interview, denied that he bribed anyone. He said the charges against him reflect a DEA effort to force an end to his defense of Caro Quintero.

“Caro Quintero is going to be acquitted,” Alatorre told a Times reporter.

Alatorre said that the money seized by the DEA was no more than normal payment for years of legal work for clients other than Caro Quintero. Of about 40 suspects arrested in the Camarena murder, Alatorre claimed credit for getting more than 20 freed.

He said that he opened bank accounts in the United States as early as 1982 and always declared money that he brought into the United States to U.S. customs officials at the border.

“I have other bank accounts in the United States that the DEA has not touched. To show how confident I am in my innocence, I am going to leave the money there,” Alatorre said.

According to the DEA affidavit, Alatorre has declared about $1.9 million cash with U.S. Customs agents at various frontier crossings.

Invited Judge to Dinner

Alatorre confirmed that he met with Fernandez Doblado last May, but in San Diego, not Tijuana. “I ran across him in the Inter-Continental Hotel,” he said, “and I invited him to my home for dinner.”

There was nothing unusual about the meeting, Alatorre added. “I meet openly with judges. It is no secret,” he asserted.

The DEA also charged Alatorre with bribing a judge in Mexicali to free a relative of Caro Quintero who was jailed in Tijuana on charges of murdering a prison warden. Alatorre denied those charges and said that he merely worked through normal channels to win acquittal in a case that had dragged on for several years.

In a Wednesday newspaper advertisement, law partners of Alatorre publicly requested meetings with both the U.S. ambassador here and the Mexican foreign minister. Neither has responded.

The Camarena killing has been a sore spot in relations between the United States and Mexico. The murder unleashed adverse comments from several U.S. officials about the role that government corruption in Mexico plays in easing the narcotics trade.

So far, there has only been one conviction in the Camarena killing, that of Armando Pavon Reyes, a former federal police commander in Guadalajara. He was sentenced to four years in prison for accepting a bribe from Caro Quintero to let the fugitive take off from a Guadalajara airfield bound for Costa Rica. The bribe, to be distributed among Pavon Reyes and his colleagues, was said to total about $300,000.

Caro Quintero was later arrested in Costa Rica and returned to Mexico.

Earlier this week, Pavon Reyes was let out of jail on $300 bail while his conviction is under appeal. He is not represented by the same lawyers who are defending Caro Quintero.