Doctor Kidnaped by DEA Files $20-Million Claim

Seeking to remedy what civil libertarians say is a flouting of international law, a Mexican physician who was kidnaped in Guadalajara and taken north of the border at the behest of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration filed a $20-million damage claim Friday against the U.S. government.

Dr. Humberto Alvarez Machain, released in Los Angeles in December after a federal judge dismissed criminal charges, said the claim--the precursor of a planned federal lawsuit--is designed to prevent more international abductions by U.S. authorities.

“I hope that the United States government reflects on its actions so that this never happens again,” Alvarez said in a telephone hookup from Mexico City to a Los Angeles news conference.

Alvarez, whose April, 1990, kidnaping sparked protests in Mexico and severely strained U.S.-Mexico relations, says he suffers from heart trouble and psychological trauma stemming from his abduction and subsequent 32-month incarceration. Alvarez blamed his father’s fatal heart attack last fall to the stress associated with the abduction.

U.S. authorities accused the physician of complicity in the 1985 kidnaping and murder in Mexico of DEA Agent Enrique Camarena. Alvarez denied any involvement. The federal judge who acquitted Alvarez and ordered his release called the government’s case “wild speculation.”

Paul Hoffman, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which is assisting Alvarez, called the abduction a “gross violation of international law.”

Robert C. Bonner, DEA administrator, denied government wrongdoing in the case, noting that a Supreme Court ruling last year found that the abduction did not violate the U.S.-Mexico extradition treaty.

“We’re very confident that we’ll prevail in the civil suit,” said Bonner, a former U.S. attorney in Los Angeles.

Named as defendants in a related lawsuit filed Friday by Alvarez are several DEA officials, including former agency Administrator Jack C. Lawn, and seven Mexican citizens, who allegedly participated in the abduction, most of whom are believed to be living in the United States under government protection.