Suspect Labels Mexico Slaying First of a Plot

The assassination of the second-ranking official in the ruling party was the first in a plot to kill reform-minded politicians, according to a suspect’s declaration announced Sunday by police.

Francisco Ruiz Massieu, the slain general secretary of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which has ruled Mexico for 65 years, was just one name on a list of planned victims, suspect Jorge Rodriguez Gonzalez told police.

In his statement, Rodriguez Gonzalez outlined a complicated murder plot with strong hints of a liaison between politicians and drug lords.

He said that his brother Fernando, a top aide to an important congressman from Tamaulipas, had told him: “There is a list of important people in Mexico who have to die because they support a series of reforms for the political modernization of that country.”

The slaying would also politically weaken the victim’s brother, Mario, who is the assistant attorney general in charge of anti-narcotics enforcement, Rodriguez Gonzalez said his brother told him.

Police had questioned and released the congressman, Manuel Munoz Rocha, on Friday, after the alleged triggerman, Daniel Aguilar Trevino, said Fernando Rodriguez Gonzalez was the person who had shown him Ruiz Massieu’s photo and identified him as the target of the assassination they were planning.

The attorney general has asked the legislature to revoke Munoz Rocha’s congressional immunity, thus permitting him to be arrested. Prosecutors also added criminal association to the charges against Aguilar Trevino.

Mexicans had immediately suspected political infighting in connection with the assassination of Ruiz Massieu, who was slated to be majority leader in the next Congress. Nevertheless, the news provoked shock and indignation.

“This is shameful for the nation,” said Patricia Ruiz, deputy for the leftist opposition Democratic Revolutionary Party. “Congress should be the best the nation has to offer, not a den of criminals.”

As the investigation continued into the second major political assassination in just over six months, the judge in the trial of Mario Aburto Martinez--accused of the March 23 murder of PRI presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio--considered a prosecution motion to convict Aburto and sentence him to 50 years in prison. Mexico has no death penalty.

Many Mexicans suspect there was a plot to kill Colosio, and three men are in jail awaiting trial as accomplices. But two successive special prosecutors have yet to turn up the kind of testimony Jorge Rodriguez Gonzalez has provided in the latest case.

Also, unlike the Colosio killing, in which the history of the gun used remains a mystery, the attorney general’s office Sunday said it had found the source of the weapon in the Ruiz Massieu case. A police officer in Tamaulipas, Jose Pascual Alvarez, admitted having sold the handgun used in the slaying to Jorge Rodriguez Gonzalez.

At the same time, Rodriguez Gonzalez told police, he also bought an AK-47. Civilians are prohibited from owning such high-powered weapons in Mexico.

The purchase of the gun, according to Rodriguez Gonzalez, was part of a carefully planned plot that included obtaining detailed information about Ruiz Massieu’s habits.

He said that Munoz Rocha contacted his old friend, Abraham Rubio Canales, for that information. Rubio Canales is in prison in Acapulco after being convicted of land fraud while he was tourism secretary under Ruiz Massieu, a former governor of Guerrero. Police have questioned Rubio Canales but released no information.

Rubio Canales is also the father-in-law of Raul Valladares, recently arrested by Mario Ruiz Massieu on cocaine trafficking charges. Valladares is believed to be the lieutenant of Juan Garcia Abrego, accused of heading the powerful Gulf cartel. The cartel is widely believed to run Tamaulipas.

Rodriguez Gonzalez said his brother told him in early September to hire two bodyguards and bring them to Mexico City. He offered the jobs to Aguilar Trevino and Carlos Angel Cantu.

Only after they arrived in the capital were they told that they had been contracted to commit murder.

Jesus Sanchez--Jorge Rodriguez Gonzalez’s chauffeur--told police he was to drive his boss to a place near the scene of the killing and to wait for the triggerman. But when he saw police cars gathering, he said, he panicked and drove to Fernando Rodriguez Gonzalez’s home.

There, he was told to meet his boss’s brother at a city park. From the park, they drove to a restaurant, where Sanchez said he was promised an apartment and an unspecified sum of money in return for his part in the slaying.

Meanwhile, a bank security guard had tackled Aguilar Trevino and turned him over to police. Aguilar Trevino told police that Fernando Rodriguez Gonzalez and Cantu had offered to pay him about $17,000 to kill Ruiz Massieu.

Cantu turned himself in to authorities in the border town of Matamoros late Saturday and was being questioned. Aguilar Trevino told police that Cantu went with him to the scene of the slaying. Cantu told reporters he believed they were going to buy tamales.