Kidnap Figure to Testify in Camarena Case, U.S. Says

A Los Angeles federal prosecutor said Tuesday that a longtime Drug Enforcement Administration operative who orchestrated the kidnaping of a Mexican doctor “is under government control” and will be made available to testify at the impending trial of four men who have been linked to the murder of U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena.

The disclosure about DEA operative Antonio Garate Bustamante came from Assistant U.S. Atty. Manuel Medrano during a pretrial hearing in the Camarena murder case.

Garate, who lives in Los Angeles in a fortified apartment, told The Times last week that he plotted the doctor’s kidnaping after receiving approval from Hector Berrellez, a DEA agent who heads a nine-member team searching for Camarena’s killers.

The 51-year-old Garate said he used 10 Mexicans--including some law enforcement officers--to kidnap Dr. Humberto Alvarez Machain from his Guadalajara office April 2.

Garate said he has been working for the DEA on the Camarena case for several years and is paid $4,000 a month.

Although Alvarez is not one of the defendants in the forthcoming trial, he has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles. Alvarez, a gynecologist, is accused of providing drugs to revive Camarena so that he could be interrogated and tortured further by drug traffickers and some ranking Mexican law enforcement officials at a Guadalajara house. Camarena’s mutilated body was found in March, 1985, at a ranch 65 miles from the city.

Alvarez was flown to El Paso, Tex., where he was arrested by DEA agents from Los Angeles on April 3. His abduction drew condemnations from Mexican officials.

Last week, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari of Mexico charged in a Los Angeles speech that the kidnaping violated his country’s national sovereignty. Mexico’s attorney general on Friday announced that six Mexicans had been arrested for participating in the doctor’s kidnaping and added that arrest warrants would be issued for seven other people, including Garate.

U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie, who is presiding over the Camarena case, said the manner in which Alvarez was brought to the United States was “of considerable concern” to him and he has scheduled a May 25 hearing to determine if anything illegal was done. He severed Alvarez from the trial of the four other men.

Prosecutor Medrano made his statement about Garate after defense lawyers said Tuesday that they wanted to talk to certain witnesses before the trial begins.

Garate’s name appears on a list of 11 people that prosecutors have given to defense attorneys. The individuals are believed to have information about the Camarena case, but prosecutors do not plan to put them on the witness stand.

Defense lawyer Edward Medvene said that he wanted access to some of those individuals.

Rafeedie told the prosecutor that the defendants “cannot be denied access to confidential informants.” The judge ordered prosecutors to set up telephone contacts between the 11 people on the list and the defense lawyers, who will ask them if they are willing to talk.

However, Rafeedie warned the defense lawyers not to expect much from the phone conversations. “I’m almost certain all of these witnesses are going to decline to be interviewed,” he said. “That has been the situation in the past.” The witnesses could be subpoenaed to testify, however.

Medrano said the government did not have access to all the individuals on the list. But when Medvene asked him about Garate, the prosecutor responded: “The government has access to him. He’s under government control and he will be available.”

The defense attorney said he would like to question Garate because the DEA operative had allegedly found a confidential informant who will testify against his client, Ruben Zuno Arce. Zuno, who has proclaimed his innocence, is a prominent Mexican businessman accused of being one of the plotters of the Camarena murder.

Garate, according to government documents, also has information about the activities of convicted drug kingpin Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros, another defendant in the case.