Judge Seeks Answers on DEA Arrest of Mexican

A Los Angeles federal judge Thursday ordered U.S. law enforcement officials to appear in court to explain how a Mexican doctor was brought to this country to face charges in the murder of drug agent Enrique Camarena.

U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie’s action came only a day after U.S. Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh was confronted at a conference in Ixtapa, Mexico, with tough questions from his counterpart in Mexico, Enrique Alvarez de Castillo, about how Dr. Humberto Alvarez Machain was brought to El Paso, Tex., on April 3, where the doctor was arrested by Drug Enforcement Administration agents.

And in an unusually blunt criticism of U.S. conduct in the war on drugs, Mexico’s President Carlos Salinas de Gortari said Thursday that “the fight against drug trafficking cannot be used as a pretext for violating the law nor the territory of another country.”

His harsh words were aimed in part at the alleged role of the United States in the arrest of Alvarez.

“We will not permit anyone--not drug traffickers nor their pursuers--to violate Mexican law,” Salinas said in a speech in Ixtapa during the Organization of American States’ conference on illicit drug use.

Salinas’ speech--a copy of which was made available in Washington--appeared also to reflect resentment over the conduct of the United States in other recent anti-drug operations, including the use of U.S. spy satellites to survey marijuana production in Mexico.

Mexican government officials are demanding to know whether Alvarez was kidnaped by bounty hunters who were paid $100,000 to deliver him to the DEA agents, as sources in Mexico have reported. They also are asking pointed questions about whether a DEA agent actually participated in Alvarez’s apprehension in Mexico.

A federal prosecutor said in Los Angeles on Thursday that no DEA agent had set foot in Mexico with regard to the arrest of Alvarez.

Nevertheless, Rafeedie said the question of how Alvarez was arrested and brought to El Paso was a matter of “considerable concern” to him, and he set a May 25 hearing on the matter. And the judge told prosecutors to bring witnesses who could explain what happened.

Sources in Mexico and the United States have said that Alvarez’s apprehension was orchestrated by Los Angeles-based DEA agents working for “Operation Leyenda,” the task force created to capture Camarena’s killers.

Alvarez’s attorney, Robert K. Steinberg of Los Angeles, said at Thursday’s court hearing that his client had been kidnaped from his office in Guadalajara by men who identified themselves as Mexican police and told him he was being arrested for performing an illegal abortion. The physician denied the abortion allegation. But he was taken into custody and flown to El Paso in a private plane.

Steinberg said Alvarez told him that one of the six men on the plane identified himself as a DEA agent. The attorney said his client also told him that a person had gotten off the plane in El Paso and joined the DEA agents who arrested the physician. All the other men got back on the plane, which apparently flew back to Mexico, Alvarez told his lawyer.

“If, in fact, he was brought here illegally, then that kidnaping is almost as bad as what my client is accused of,” Steinberg said.

The government has charged Alvarez with being an accessory to murder. Prosecutors allege that in 1985 he administered drugs to Camarena to revive him for further torturing at a Guadalajara house, where local drug kingpins and some Mexican police officials had gathered in an attempt to find out how much Camarena knew about their operations.

According to a DEA report obtained by The Times, when Alvarez was questioned in El Paso, he told agents that he had been at the Guadalajara house. He said he did not treat Camarena, but did see another doctor tending him.

Steinberg said he would file a formal motion asserting that the court had no jurisdiction to try his client because of the way he was brought to the United States.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Manuel Medrano, chief prosecutor in the case, told Rafeedie on Thursday that, as far as he knew, there were no DEA agents on the plane that brought Alvarez to Texas. But he acknowledged that his information was incomplete.

Medrano said it was common knowledge that rewards were being paid for the delivery to the United States of Mexicans indicted in the Camarena case. “The U.S. has had standing offers in Mexico . . . that’s been on the streets in Guadalajara for some time,” he said.

The prosecutor said DEA agents in Los Angeles were called by a confidential informant on April 2, who said Alvarez was in custody and would be taken to El Paso on April 3. Medrano said a group of agents immediately flew to El Paso to make the arrest. He said individuals on the plane from Mexico told the agents that they were affiliated with Mexican law enforcement.

“At no time has any DEA agent set foot on Mexican soil” to apprehend Alvarez, Medrano said.

On Thursday, Rafeedie formally severed Alvarez from the case involving four other defendants in the Camarena case. They are set for trial May 1.

Times staff writer Ronald J. Ostrow in Washington contributed to this story.