Assassin’s Family Can Stay in U.S.

A federal immigration judge in Los Angeles granted political asylum Tuesday to seven family members of the convicted assassin of Mexican presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio.

The ruling closes--at least for now--a chapter in a cross-border subplot, but does nothing to clarify the shadowy maze of intrigue behind the slaying. The family of Mario Aburto Martinez, who is now serving a 45-year sentence for Colosio’s 1994 murder, has cast Aburto as a fall guy in a murder conspiracy that they claim could involve ranking leaders of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which has ruled Mexico for 67 years.

Family members, now living in San Pedro, said they feared for their lives if they returned to Mexico.

The family’s asylum petition painted a lurid picture of alleged behind-the-scenes police practices in the detentions, abuse and harassment that the family said forced them to scramble over a border fence in May 1994 and tell a U.S. Border Patrol agent that they wanted asylum.

Immigration Judge Nathan Gordon said the accounts, which he heard during several appearances in the past year, appeared “credible and forthright.”

“From the testimony, it appears that the family fled because . . . the sins of the son, if true, were inflicted on them,” Gordon said.

His ruling applies to Aburto’s mother, Maria Luisa Martinez, 47, and his siblings, Ruben, 24, Jose Luis, 22, Elizabeth, 18, and Karina, 12. It also includes Adela Alvarado, Jose Luis’ wife, and their son, Luis Jovani, 3.

“I’m very grateful to the government of the United States,” Maria Luisa Martinez said. “This is a very just decision. It shows that the United States government respects human rights.

“I am afraid to return to Mexico because the government is very corrupt,” she said.

However, Patricia Corrales, assistant district counsel for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said her office would appeal the ruling.

“We hope justice will prevail,” she said. “We do not feel this case is even a candidate for asylum.”

Miguel Escobar, a spokesman for the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles, said there would be no comment until today.

Colosio was gunned down at a crowded Tijuana campaign rally in March 1994. Police arrested Aburto at the scene, but the murder remains the subject of a national investigation so murky and inconclusive that some compare it to the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

The family’s asylum petition said police arrested Maria Luisa Martinez hours after the March 23 assassination and took her and her daughters, Elizabeth and Karina, to the police station about midnight. There, they forced them to strip and “model” while police officers yelled insults, the petition said, adding that they were held for two days.

“It was horrible,” Elizabeth said. “I tried to cover myself, but they said take your hands away. They made fun of us.”

Jose Luis Aburto said he was kept in solitary confinement for two weeks after the assassination. Mexican police officers beat him, kicked him and threatened to kill him or harm his mother if he did not confess to a role in the slaying, the petition said.

One officer shoved a gun in his mouth and said, “Now you are going to hell with your brother,” according to the testimony. His cell had no toilet or bed and he was allowed little food or water, said Peter Schey, the family’s attorney.

For months afterward, government supporters drove by and threw rocks or shot at the house, yelling “Assassin!” the family testified.

The family members said they decided to leave Mexico one day when they noticed someone following them on a routine shopping trip. A police officer followed their taxi to the border, but they managed to scramble across, they said.

“They felt hurt with nowhere to turn,” Judge Gordon said. “I find they are fleeing as a family, not under the nicest conditions . . . but nevertheless they are frightened.”

Gordon said the State Department had said that it could not verify the accusations but that reports of such mistreatment were “not inconsistent with conditions in the country as they understand them.”

Schey said he was surprised and pleased by the ruling, which he had feared would be influenced by the close relationship of the United States and Mexico, partners in the North American Free Trade Agreement.

“We’re grateful that this judge set aside political and foreign policy considerations,” said Schey, the executive director of the Los Angeles-based Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law.