Mexico Will Not Pursue Charges in Murder Case

Mexican authorities will not investigate an accusation by U.S. prosecutors that the current Mexico City police chief attended a meeting to plan the 1985 murder of U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena, Mexican officials said Saturday.

Speaking at a news conference in downtown Los Angeles, Gustavo Petricioli, Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, defended his country’s handling of the Camarena investigation and described as “irresponsible” the accusation against Police Chief Javier Garcia Paniagua.

“The great majority of Mexican officials are honest people, devoted people, working people--people who want to help our country,” Petricioli said. “It is not fair that somebody says something about any Mexican official . . . without any proof or evidence at all.”

Garcia has not been indicted in the February, 1985, torture and murder of Camarena, but federal prosecutors in Los Angeles asserted in a court memorandum that Garcia attended a meeting of 10 drug traffickers and Mexican law enforcement officials in October, 1984, at which they “agreed that something would have to be done” about Camarena.

Mexico’s attorney general, Enrique Alvarez del Castillo, has continually maintained that all of the people responsible for Camarena’s slaying have been brought to justice. An official from the attorney general’s office said Saturday that 28 people have been convicted in the case and are “serving long sentences.”

Gustavo Gonzalez Baez, minister for narcotics affairs at the Mexican Embassy in Washington, said Saturday that Mexican authorities are “watching very carefully” court proceedings in Los Angeles involving Camarena’s accused murderers. He said, however, that U.S. prosecutors have not given Mexican authorities any “legal support” for the accusation against Garcia, once considered a likely successor to President Jose Lopez Portillo.

“We would like to know what (is) the evidence against this Mexican official since we cannot condemn anyone without proof,” said Gonzalez, who is accompanying Petricioli on a three-day visit to Los Angeles. “It would be irresponsible to say that this man is guilty just because one person, we don’t know who, made a statement against this man.”

The news conference followed by one day a strongly worded statement issued in Mexico City by the attorney general denouncing the accusation against Garcia as “worrisome” and “unproven.” He said the “irresponsible attitude” reflected in the accusation has hurt the fight against drug trafficking.

Petricioli warned Saturday that tensions between the United States and Mexico over the incident play into drug traffickers’ hands. “If we start fighting between each other and start blaming each other, we are playing the game of the people who are running all of this business,” he said.