Mexico Charges Doctor in Camarena Case

Mexico’s attorney general announced Tuesday that he has filed formal charges against Humberto Alvarez Machain, a Guadalajara doctor, in connection with the 1985 murder of a U.S. drug agent.

Atty. Gen. Enrique Alvarez del Castillo said the Mexican gynecologist, abducted and brought by force to the United States on April 2, would be jailed and tried immediately on charges of complicity and illicit association if U.S. authorities return him to Mexico.

The attorney general said through a spokesman that the charges are based in part on Alvarez’s “stated confession of having been present in the interrogation and torture of (Drug Enforcement Administration) Agent Enrique S. Camarena. . . . If they return him, he will immediately be tried on the basis of our investigation and his confession.”

“We also know that Alvarez laundered money for (drug kingpin) Rafael Caro Quintero,” said Fernando Arias, a spokesman for the attorney general.

Caro is the reputed mastermind of Camarena’s kidnaping in Guadalajara in February, 1985. He is in jail in Mexico City.

Alvarez was abducted from Guadalajara and flown across the U.S.-Mexico border to El Paso where he was arrested and brought to Los Angeles to stand trial for the torture-murder of Camarena. U.S. officials allege that he administered drugs to Camarena to keep him alive during his interrogation by drug traffickers.

Antonio Garate Bustamante, DEA operative and a former Mexican police official, admitted arranging the abduction, which has become a thorn in the side of U.S.-Mexican relations.

Arias said the U.S. government has not responded to an official appeal for the doctor’s return. U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie is to rule this week on whether Alvarez was brought legally before the court and may stand trial.