Mexico Atty. Gen. Says 2 Gunmen Killed Colosio

Confirming nearly a year of conspiracy theories and public disbelief, Mexico’s top prosecutor announced late Friday that an exhaustive investigation shows that two gunmen killed the ruling party’s presidential candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio, last March--not one, as the government has insisted.

Citing a two-month investigation that included a re-creation of the Tijuana crime scene Thursday and the arrest Friday of the second suspect, Atty. Gen. Antonio Lozano stunned a hurriedly called news conference in the Mexican capital by declaring: “The hypothesis of a single killer is unsustainable, and without doubt the crime scene was manipulated.

“The murder perpetrated against Luis Donaldo Colosio was the result of the actions of several subjects.”

The young prosecutor--the first member of an opposition party ever to serve in a ruling party government--identified the second gunman as Othon Cortes Vazquez, 38, who Lozano said was being questioned by police.

Lozano said he based his conclusion on the accounts of at least three key eyewitnesses, a videotape of the murder and the condition of a bullet apparently planted on the spot where Colosio fell during a campaign rally.

Lozano’s announcements conflict with the findings of two earlier special prosecutors, who had concluded that the murder, which changed the face of Mexican politics, was the work of a single man, Mario Aburto Martinez. Aburto was arrested at the scene, convicted and sentenced to 45 years in prison late last year.

In recounting the evidence gathered by his special prosecutor, Pablo Chapa Bezanilla, Lozano said it was impossible for a single gunman to have shot the presidential hopeful twice in rapid succession. He also rejected the official theory that Colosio spun a full quarter-turn between bullets.

“The investigation is not finished, (it is) only in the first stage,” Lozano told reporters. “We will continue the investigation until all the facts are clear.”

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The Times also learned that on Thursday, Bezanilla--who, like Lozano, is a member of the opposition National Action Party--made one of his periodic visits to Tijuana.

Bezanilla and his investigators spent the day poring over the assassination scene and taking measurements in the working-class neighborhood that was shattered March 23 when the top candidate to lead Mexico into the 21st Century was gunned down.

Lozano’s bombshell was the first break with the official line set by former Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, who handpicked Colosio to succeed him and then chose Ernesto Zedillo, Colosio’s campaign manager and now president, after the assassination.

The killing was followed by the Sept. 28 assassination of Francisco Ruiz Massieu, the No. 2 man in the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party. Police are still seeking the alleged mastermind of that murder, a fugitive congressman they believe may be dead.

Throughout the last year, official versions of the Colosio slaying have maintained that Aburto was a lone gunman, although initially authorities charged that he was aided by co-conspirators who allegedly helped him push through a crowd and shoot Colosio at point-blank range.

Three of those suspects remain in prison.

The revelation of a suspected second gunman Friday confirmed a suspicion that is widespread in Tijuana and often expressed by opposition politicians and journalists that Aburto could not have shot Colosio twice. The reasoning is that the candidate was first hit in the right side of the head, then in the left side of the abdomen.

On the day after the assassination, then-Atty. Gen. Diego Valades explained that Colosio quickly spun 90 degrees after the first shot. But videotape of the assassination shows only the first shot, fired at point-blank range into Colosio’s head by a gun that emerges out of a jostling crowd.

Fineman reported from Mexico City and Rotella from Tijuana.