Colosio Slaying Case Still Open; Prosecutor Quits

The special prosecutor investigating the assassination of ruling party presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio resigned Thursday after his findings caused an uproar, and President Carlos Salinas de Gortari said the case will remain open.

Supreme Court Justice Miguel Montes Garcia resigned two days after announcing he had concluded that a 23-year-old factory worker acted alone in committing the murder. His formal report had been expected to close the investigation.

But Thursday, Salinas accepted Montes’ resignation and named law professor Olga Islas to replace him as special prosecutor.

“The case is not closed nor is the investigation concluded,” Salinas said in a press statement.

Unlike Montes, who is a career politician, Islas’ specialty is practicing and teaching law. Salinas also named a panel of five distinguished legal experts to review the investigation and said Montes’ report would be made public.

Montes’ conclusion that Colosio was not the victim of a conspiracy raised widespread accusations that the government was sweeping the investigation under the carpet.

Colosio was the leading candidate to win the Aug. 21 presidential election. His murder March 23 at the end of a Tijuana campaign rally has contributed to an atmosphere of political instability in a country already shaken by a Jan. 1 Indian uprising in the southern state of Chiapas and rising violence related to drug trafficking.

Initially, officials had pursued an investigation of a murder conspiracy involving at least six men. Three of the accused are currently in jail, awaiting trial on allegations that they manipulated the crowd and distracted bodyguards at the campaign rally, allowing factory worker Mario Aburto Martinez to get close enough to Colosio to fatally shoot him.

A series of videotapes were the main evidence for that theory. Prosecutors have not interviewed members of Aburto’s family, now living in Los Angeles, who say he may have been influenced by radical political groups.

Conspiracy theories have put the blame on everyone from drug traffickers to malcontents within Colosio’s own party to an alliance between the two groups. The theories were strengthened in the public mind by the gangland-style murder of the Tijuana police chief, who had indicated he suspected a plot to kill Colosio.

Montes indicated last month that he was leaning toward a lone gunman theory. But his announcement Tuesday that he saw no evidence of a conspiracy provoked outrage.

Juan Velazquez, a lawyer for Colosio’s widow, called Montes’ report “ridiculous.”

Business leaders and listeners calling in to Thursday morning radio talk shows demanded a new investigation. Members of Colosio’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, led by new candidate Ernesto Zedillo, who was Colosio’s campaign manager, called for the party to create its own commission to investigate the murder.

Montes, in a two-page letter of resignation, stated: “In the current circumstances, I think the investigation would benefit if the upcoming work was not coordinated by me.” Salinas immediately accepted the resignation and commended Montes for assembling an excellent team of investigators.

“The murder of Luis Donaldo Colosio offended all Mexicans,” Salinas said. “The government is committed to get to the bottom of it.”