Mexico Calls U.S. Charges Against Official Unproven : Diplomacy: Prosecutors’ accusations that police chief was involved in Camarena murder

Allegations by U.S. prosecutors that the current Mexico City police chief attended a meeting to plan the 1985 murder of an American drug enforcement agent are “irresponsible” and “unproven,” the Mexican government charged Friday.

Mexican officials said the accusation against Police Chief Javier Garcia Paniagua would further strain U.S.-Mexican relations, which suffered a setback last month with the abduction from Guadalajara to the United States of a Mexican doctor charged in connection with the murder.

Garcia, one-time president of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, has not been indicted in the February, 1985, torture and murder of U.S. drug agent Enrique S. Camarena. But federal prosecutors in Los Angeles asserted in a court memorandum that Garcia attended a meeting of 10 traffickers and Mexican law enforcement officials in Guadalajara in October, 1984, at which they determined that “something would have to be done” about Camarena.

The Mexico City police chief is a member of an old-line political family from Guadalajara--his father was a defense minister--and is the only person mentioned in connection with the case who currently holds a government post.

At different times, he has been a federal senator, minister of labor, minister of agrarian reform and commander of the now-defunct federal security police, several of whose members have been implicated in drug trafficking, murder and other crimes. He was once considered a likely successor to President Jose Lopez Portillo.

“It is worrisome and irresponsible to put out information, which is probably even generated by drug traffickers, to stain the names of Mexican officials and citizens without any proof or evidence,” the Mexican attorney general’s office asserted in a statement issued Friday. “This irresponsible attitude, on the part of those who issue these versions and those who disseminate them, reduces the effectiveness of the fight against drug trafficking.”

Atty. Gen. Enrique Alvarez del Castillo issued the statement upon his return from Santa Fe, N.M., where he met with his U.S. counterpart, Dick Thornburgh, to discuss bilateral drug enforcement relations and the April 2 kidnaping of Dr. Humberto Alvarez Machain from Guadalajara.

The Mexican attorney general was “not satisfied” with Thornburgh’s explanation of the kidnaping, said a source close to Alvarez del Castillo.

Thornburgh reportedly told Alvarez del Castillo that the doctor’s kidnaping and clandestine transfer to the United States was the idea of Mexican authorities. Mexican officials charge that the Drug Enforcement Administration arranged the abduction, and they have issued an arrest warrant for a Los Angeles-based DEA informant who admitted to organizing the operation. The doctor was flown across the border to El Paso, where he was arrested by DEA agents, and is now awaiting trial in Los Angeles.

A source in the attorney general’s office said the U.S. government is now accusing Garcia “to make it look like they are doing something to fight drug trafficking. They don’t know what else to do. Next, they’ll be charging my grandmother.”

The Mexican official, who declined to be identified, said the allegations against Garcia would “renew tensions” between drug enforcement agencies from the two countries.

“Where’s the proof?” asked the source. “They should put forward the proof if they are going to make these charges.”

On the U.S. side, there have been accusations that Mexican authorities have engaged in a cover-up in the Camarena case, but Alvarez del Castillo has maintained that all those involved have been brought to justice.