Camarena Defendant May Get New Trial : Courts: Judge says he probably will throw out conviction of former Mexican president’s brother-in-law for conspiracy in murder of drug agent.

A federal judge announced Tuesday that he probably will throw out the conviction of Ruben Zuno Arce, the brother-in-law of former Mexican president Luis Echeverria, for conspiring in the 1985 murder of U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena.

At what was expected to be a routine sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie ruled tentatively that Zuno, 61, should get a new trial. He said prosecutors provided incorrect information that led him to bar evidence that might have helped the defendant.

Rafeedie gave stunned prosecutors two days to file written arguments to change his mind. In scheduling a final hearing on the matter for Friday, however, the judge indicated that there was little chance he would allow the conviction to stand.

“What we’re concerned with is a fair trial,” he said.

Zuno was the most prominent--and politically sensitive--of the four defendants convicted in a lengthy trial in Los Angeles last summer. He faced a life sentence.

The case strained relations between the United States and Mexico, in part because prosecutors accused Zuno of being a link between drug lords and the highest levels of the Mexican government.

Zuno’s father once was governor of the state of Jalisco and his sister is married to Echeverria.

Described by his family as a wealthy businessman with interests in ranching, oil and canning, Zuno proclaimed himself “absolutely innocent” when indicted in December, 1989.

Prosecutors said Camarena was abducted off the streets of Guadalajara, then tortured and killed in retaliation for Drug Enforcement Administration campaigns against cocaine traffickers.

The key witness against Zuno was Hector Cervantes Santos, a former Guadalajara policeman who testified that Zuno participated in three meetings at which Camarena’s abduction was planned. Prosecutors also said Zuno once owned the house where Camarena was tortured, selling it to drug kingpin Rafael Caro Quintero before the crime.

At issue in Rafeedie’s tentative ruling Tuesday was Cervantes’ testimony about the transfer of the drug agent’s body from La Primavera--a town northwest of Guadalajara where it initially was buried--to a distant ranch.

Cervantes said he was told Camarena’s body was moved because “Don Ruben (Zuno) would be in trouble” if it was discovered on land he owned.

Attorneys for Zuno sought to discredit the testimony by introducing a photograph showing that the suspected location of the first grave actually was the state-owned La Primavera Park--not on Zuno’s property.

But prosecutors assured the judge that the witness was merely speaking of the town of La Primavera, not the park. Rafeedie therefore did not allow the jury to see the photograph.

However, prosecutors, after testimony by soil experts, said during closing statements that soil samples found on Camarena’s body linked it to the park.

“It appears the government changed its position to the defendant’s disadvantage,” Rafeedie said Tuesday.

“This case was a close case,” the judge said. The photograph could have helped the defense undermine the witness’s credibility, he added: “If Cervantes could not have been believed, this defendant would not have been convicted.”

The lead federal prosecutor, Manuel A. Medrano, maintained that the photograph had “no impeachment value” against the key witness. Medrano said the prosecution’s change of position was not crucial to the conviction.

Zuno’s attorney, Edward Medvene, said the “interests of basic justice” require that the conviction be overturned.

“The stakes are so great,” he said. “We’re just asking for a new trial.”

Zuno, who is being held without bail, strode confidently from the courtroom at the conclusion of the hearing.