Mexico Denies Harassing Accused Assassin’s Kin

Mexican officials Thursday denied claims by the relatives of Mario Aburto Martinez, the man accused of killing presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio, that they have been persecuted--and authorities now say they are now seeking new evidence from the suspect’s father.

A statement from the attorney general’s office contradicted the claims of six Aburto family members who asked for political asylum in the United States earlier this week. The six, alleging harassment in Tijuana, are seeking permission to stay in the United States temporarily.

Meanwhile, Miguel Angel Sanchez de Armas, spokesman for the special prosecutor in the sensitive assassination case, denied Thursday that Ruben Aburto, the suspect’s father, has a warrant pending from a 1967 case that would prevent him from returning to Mexico to tell police what he knows and visit his imprisoned son.

Investigators are seeking to interview the father and are even willing to go to Los Angeles, where the elder Aburto lives, said Sanchez, spokesman for Miguel Montes Garcia, the special prosecutor.

The father has said publicly that, in the weeks before the shooting, his son met with as many as four members of the security and crowd-control entourage that accompanied Colosio on March 23, the day of the slaying. While the elder Aburto has provided no proof, the accusation hints at a government plot to kill Colosio.

Aburto’s Los Angeles lawyer, Peter Schey, said the father has not told Mexican authorities about his son’s meetings because the elder Aburto feared for the safety of relatives in Tijuana. But Schey explained that the father was now willing to give testimony if his safety is guaranteed.

Darling reported from Mexico City and McDonnell from Los Angeles.