Mexicans Scorn Theory of Lone Colosio Killer

A lone gunman assassinated presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio in March, according to the special prosecutor’s latest theory, which was roundly rejected by human rights activists, opposition politicians and ordinary Mexicans on Friday.

Late Thursday, special prosecutor Miguel Montes Garcia sharply backed away from the government’s previously described view that a conspiracy was responsible for the death of Colosio, who was widely expected to be the next president of Mexico.

“Recent investigations . . . strengthen the theory that the murder was committed by one man alone: Mario Aburto Martinez,” Montes said in a statement.

It came three days after a special commission to investigate the assassination disbanded because the panel’s five members said they could not gain access to needed information. A Mexican congressional committee, created to investigate the crime, has made similar complaints.

According to surveys, many Mexicans believe that the government is covering up a high-level conspiracy to assassinate Colosio.

In his statement, Montes denied rumors that Aburto, who has been imprisoned while he awaits trial on charges connected with the assassination, is not the same suspect who was originally arrested. He also denied assertions that the one-inch difference in the size of the two bullet holes in Colosio’s body indicates that the wounds were made by bullets of different calibers.

Montes did not say where Aburto obtained the gun he allegedly used in the assassination. He also did not discuss whether Aburto belonged to a political group, as relatives and friends have indicated. Nor did he mention a motive.

Montes’ spokesman denied that the prosecutor’s statement signaled the end of an investigation that has embarrassed the government and overshadowed the presidential campaign.

Even so, the latest development in the inquiry met with wide skepticism.

“It’s a joke,” said Sergio Aguayo, chairman of the independent Mexican Human Rights Academy in the capital. “It is unacceptable, a public relations game. They play with us all the time. That’s the problem with a totalitarian regime.”

Pedro Chavez, a 27-year-old news vendor, chalked up Montes’ statement to pressure.

“The government and the people want an answer before the (Aug. 21 presidential) elections,” he said. “Still, the majority of the public says it is a conspiracy, and this will make the public more demanding than ever of a satisfactory answer. They have to get to the bottom of this. It’s not as simple as just going back to the original theory.”

But Baja California Gov. Ernesto Ruffo Appel said the probe indeed appeared to have returned to square one, telling reporters Friday in Tijuana: “It seems that the information is concentrating on a scenario that existed in the first days of the investigation. The scenario is the same one that there was two months ago.”

Immediately after Colosio’s March 23 killing at a campaign rally in a working-class Tijuana neighborhood, police had portrayed the assassination as the act of a disturbed young man. But investigators shifted to a conspiracy theory after broadcasters aired a videotape that appeared to show another man clearing a path for Aburto toward Colosio.

Largely based on that tape and two other videotapes, three men have been imprisoned along with Aburto. They are awaiting trial as alleged accomplices in the killing.

Citing a lack of evidence, a judge dismissed charges against a fifth man, who had recruited the accused accomplices for crowd control at the rally.

“To date, the investigation has not turned up new evidence that would strengthen (the material) used to jail Tranquilino Sanchez Venegas, Vicente Mayoral Valenzuela (and) Rodolfo Mayoral Esquer,” Montes said.

Angel Terrazas, the Mayorals’ Tijuana lawyer, said he plans now to seek his clients’ release. The charges against them were based on a hasty prosecution and thin evidence, he said.

But Jorge Mancillas, a UCLA professor and human rights activist who is acting as an adviser to the Aburto family, accused the Mexican government of trying to put an end to the Colosio case without a thorough investigation of the possibility of a high-level plot.

“The signal from the Mexican government seems to be that they are not interested in shedding light on the circumstances surrounding the Colosio investigation,” he said. “That is a slap in the face to the Mexican people. It is simply not credible.”

He suggested that the government was sending a broader message, “that political assassination is an acceptable method for dispute resolution.”

Aburto’s strange behavior and prior contacts with suspicious people connected to the Colosio case, his family said, make them suspect that he was part of a wide-ranging plot.

His father has said that Aburto had spoken of attending mysterious political meetings in Tijuana with two of the suspects, the elder Mayoral and Sanchez, as well as two federal security agents who were investigated but not charged. Aburto’s relatives believe that the guards and others were trying to draw the 23-year-old factory worker into a plot in which he would be set up as a scapegoat, Mancillas said.

Darling reported from Mexico City and Rotella from Tijuana.