Mexico Questions Former Official in Colosio Murder Case

Mexican authorities questioned a former high-ranking government official here Thursday regarding his contention that federal officials in Mexico linked to drug lords took part in the assassination of presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio.

After hearing the six-hour testimony of Eduardo Valle Espinosa in secret in the Mexican Consulate, Alejandro Encinas, a congressional deputy, said Valle had “given us a number of clues that must be followed.”

Marc Antonio Diaz de Leon, a member of the special prosecuting team investigating the Colosio case, said Valle had “presented an ample and very important declaration that must be evaluated in Mexico with great care.” Valle also provided prosecutors with documents, he said.

Valle--a former journalist, congressman and top aide to the attorney general--has become a key figure in the Colosio investigation. He has created a stir with published interviews and letters alleging that drug cartel interests and corrupt politicians were linked to Colosio’s death.

Prosecutor Diaz de Leon said investigators accepted Valle’s offer to testify because “the exposure in the media made it necessary for us to clarify what he meant.”

Before his deposition, Valle distributed a two-page “public declaration” to reporters amplifying his original charges. He said there was “concrete evidence” that Mexican federal authorities were protecting the “Gulf Cartel” of kingpin Juan Garcia Abrego and that these authorities participated in the planning and execution of the March 23 assassination of Colosio at a Tijuana campaign rally.

Valle, 47, said no one believes that the accused gunman, Mario Aburto Martinez, acted alone. He derided the theory that local politicos of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party killed Colosio in revenge for the party’s loss of a 1989 gubernatorial race in Baja California. “To assassinate a person of such importance,” he said, “it is absolutely indispensable to have the complicity of the federal authorities in infiltrating the security team of the presidential candidate.”

Valle called for authorities to investigate the conduct of the heads of Colosio’s security detail, including Domiro Garcia Reyes--a general in the Mexican equivalent of the Secret Service--and former federal police commanders Fernando de la Sota and Jorge Vergara Verdejo.

As he left the consulate, Valle stressed to reporters that he had given his deposition “to Mexican authorities on Mexican territory.” He grew testy when a reporter asked him if he was in exile in the United States.

Valle, whose duties in the attorney general’s office included supervising an elite unit investigating Mexican drug lords, resigned abruptly last May claiming that the pervasive corruption made his duties impossible. He has moved to the United States for his personal safety.

Meisler reported from Washington and Rotella from San Diego.