Mexico Had OKd Deal for Doctor, U.S. Says

Top Mexican law enforcement officials initially agreed to an “under the table” deal to smuggle a Guadalajara doctor into the U.S. so he could face charges in the 1985 torture-murder of drug agent Enrique Camarena, according to documents filed Friday by federal prosecutors.

The April 2 kidnaping of Dr. Humberto Alvarez Machain by bounty hunters, who delivered him the next day to Drug Enforcement Administration agents in El Paso, has been denounced repeatedly by Mexican officials and has strained relations between the two countries.

But the new documents, giving the first detailed U.S. government account of the incident, suggest that Mexican Atty. Gen. Enrique Alvarez del Castillo--one of the vocal critics of U.S. actions--may have been a party to an earlier agreement to swap the doctor for a Mexican bank embezzlement suspect hiding in the U.S.

In negotiations late last year in Los Angeles, representatives of the Mexican Federal Judicial Police asked that “the arrangement be ‘under the table’ between the governments” so it would not “upset” Mexican citizens, according to a legal brief and series of affidavits filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

The brief, submitted in opposition to Alvarez’s motion to dismiss charges against him, reports that the doctor actually was detained in Mexico, but the swap fell through when DEA officials refused to pay $50,000 in advance to the federales who promised to bring him to the U.S. Later, prosecutors state, informants advised the DEA that the doctor “had paid a bribe” to the federales and was released.

Only after learning that Alvarez was free did a Los Angeles-based DEA operative, Antonio Garate Bustamante, arrange the successful abduction through contacts in Mexico, according to the documents. Garate, a former Mexican policeman who admitted working for drug traffickers at one point, was promised “a $50,000 reward” plus expenses.

Mexican officials could not be reached for comment Friday.

But Alvarez’s lawyer, Robert K. Steinberg, dismissed as “an insult to the intelligence” the prosecution’s claim that Mexico was going to cooperate in getting his client across the border.

The defense attorney said he was “delighted,” however, that the documents acknowledge that Garate arranged the abduction in close consultation with DEA agent Hector Berrellez, who heads the Los Angeles-based task force investigating Camarena’s murder.

“I’m surprised that Berrellez admits a reward,” the defense attorney said.

The DEA has long sought Alvarez, a gynecologist who allegedly revived Camarena during the torture sessions that led to his death so the agent could be questioned further about his knowledge of drug trafficking and official corruption in Mexico. But the Mexican government refuses to extradite its citizens for trial in other countries.

The outcry over the abduction began soon after the doctor was snatched from his office and flown to El Paso. One Mexican official called it “a sort of invasion” by the U.S.

On May 2, U.S. Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh met privately in Santa Fe with his Mexican counterpart to explain the U.S. government’s version of the incident. It was “not a cordial session,” one source said, and afterward Alvarez del Castillo pledged to continue to prosecute those responsible for “the deprivation of liberty and kidnaping.”

The documents filed Friday maintain that discussions with Mexican officials concerning the doctor began last year after Garate started helping the DEA pursue additional leads in the Camarena killing, for which nine men already had been indicted by a Los Angeles grand jury.

“In December, 1989, Garate was contacted telephonically by (Mexican judicial police) commandante Jorge Castillo del Rey, who sought to meet with Garate and representatives of the DEA in Los Angeles,” the legal brief says.

At the Dec. 13 meeting, the account continues, “Castillo del Rey advised that he was present in the United States with the full knowledge and authority of the attorney general of Mexico.”

Mexican officials were willing to give up Alvarez in order to get their hands on the banker believed hiding in California “because he was alleged to have stolen approximately $500 million from various politicians in Mexico,” the brief states.

The DEA reportedly agreed to find the Mexican fugitive and deport him as an illegal alien.

Garate later continued negotiations by phone with Javier Orosco-Orosco, the chief of the judicial police fugitive detail in Mexico City. But he demanded “$50,000 in advance for an airplane and other expenses to transport Alvarez-Machain to the United States,” according to the prosecution account.

Four other Camarena defendants are on trial in federal court. Trial for Alvarez has been delayed by the defense motion to dismiss charges on the grounds of “outrageous government conduct.”