Mexican Officials Linked to Colosio Assassination, Suspect’s Family Says : Investigation: Relatives of accused killer now say he met with two federal security agents before the slaying of the presidential candidate in Tijuana.

The father of the accused assassin of Mexican presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio has given a potentially explosive new account of the case that could implicate two Mexican federal security officials, family representatives said Tuesday.

The accused assassin’s father now says that his son knew the two security men and met with them weeks before the March 23 assassination, according to the family spokesmen, Peter Schey, the family’s Los Angeles lawyer, and Jorge Mancillas, a UCLA professor and family adviser.

The two spoke Tuesday with the family of Mario Aburto Martinez in Los Angeles two days after Aburto’s mother and five other relatives crossed the border illegally from Tijuana and requested political asylum, alleging that they had been harassed and threatened.

Aburto, a 23-year-old factory worker charged with gunning down Colosio at a Tijuana campaign rally, told his father in January that he was friendly with a man later identified as a security guard for Colosio, said the family representatives. Mario Aburto also told his father, Ruben, that the guard was going to introduce him to an “important person”--who turned out to be an agent in Mexico’s Interior Ministry--at a meeting in a Tijuana gymnasium, the family spokesmen said.

The two security men have been the focus of intense investigation and speculation because of their mysterious actions at the assassination; the Interior Ministry agent was arrested as he ran from the scene with a bloodstained shirt. But neither has been charged.

The revelations by Aburto’s family appear significant because there have been few developments and many conspiracy theories since the arrests of Aburto and three alleged accomplices, all volunteer security guards at the rally. But the new account comes after weeks in which the family’s public statements have changed several times, causing Mexican officials and others to question their credibility privately.

Mexican authorities did not respond Tuesday to requests for comment.

The family’s representatives said Ruben Aburto and other relatives in Los Angeles had been reluctant to speak until now because they feared retaliation against their relatives in Tijuana.

“He’s been very scared,” Mancillas said of the father. “He believed they could kill his family in Tijuana.”

Relatives call the accused gunman--who authorities say has confessed to the killing--a scapegoat for unknown conspirators behind the sensational assassination.

Ruben Aburto and other relatives of the accused assassin are willing to meet with Mexican investigators to disclose what they know, said Schey, who heads the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law in Los Angeles. Aburto’s mother and other family members in Tijuana have been questioned by Mexican police.

“The family wants the truth of the assassination to come out,” Schey said. “The family is willing to accept the truth.”

Before talking to investigators, however, the Aburtos want the Mexican government to let Ruben Aburto visit his imprisoned son near Mexico City and permit visits by attorneys from the United States and a doctor selected by the family, Schey said.

The mother and other Aburto kin who crossed the border Sunday have been released while they seek political asylum or temporary residence based on humanitarian grounds. In the last month, the family has been followed, frightened by a series of attempted break-ins and had the windows of their Tijuana house shattered by gunfire, Schey said Tuesday.

U.S. immigration officials say the case will receive no special treatment. They said diplomatic sensitivities--a political asylum case would force U.S. authorities to pass judgment on Mexico’s handling of the Colosio case--are not an issue.

The statements connecting Aburto to other figures in the case provide the strongest potential indication of a conspiracy in a secretive, much-criticized investigation. The case appears to be based largely on videotapes and on the confession of Aburto, who insists that the three alleged accomplices were not involved.

In various statements to reporters, Aburto’s father has said his son went to a shadowy political meeting in March with two of the accused accomplices, former Baja police officers who worked in the volunteer crowd control team provided by the Tijuana branch of Colosio’s political party. The two are charged with obstructing Colosio’s military bodyguards, enabling the gunman to advance through a crowd and shoot the candidate at point-blank range.

Tuesday’s revelations are particularly sensitive because they involve two other security men whose roles have never been fully explained.

According to the two family spokesmen, Ruben Aburto says he was visiting Tijuana in January when his son told him that his friend, Salvador Hernandez Tomasini, was going to introduce him that night to Jorge Antonio Sanchez Ortega, the federal agent later arrested when he ran from the assassination scene with a bloodstained shirt.

Hernandez was hired for another, somewhat mysterious campaign security squad for Colosio. Videotapes show Hernandez crouched to the left of Colosio just before the fatal shots were fired. He initially was named as a suspect, but has not been charged.

The role of Sanchez has been a major source of intense speculation involving a possible second gunman and purported government involvement in the plot. Authorities say Sanchez was assigned to monitor the campaign rally secretly for the Interior Ministry. Police arrested Sanchez as he left the scene immediately after the assassination; his hands later tested positive for gunpowder residue.

But Sanchez told interrogators that he had not fired a gun and said his shirt was bloody because he brushed against one of the men who helped carry the wounded candidate. Sanchez was later released.