Suspected Mole Is Absolved in Mexico

In an embarrassing reversal for Mexican prosecutors, a judge Saturday ordered a former presidential aide freed from prison, saying there was insufficient evidence that he was a mole spying on President Vicente Fox for drug traffickers.

The aide, Nahum Acosta, was still behind bars in the La Palma maximum-security prison Saturday evening because of a lockdown declared earlier by prison authorities.

His attorney, Jose Patino, told reporters outside the prison that Acosta might file a false imprisonment lawsuit against the government. As she awaited her husband’s release, Acosta’s wife, Evelia, said the arrest had ruined the couple’s lives.

The sensational case broke Feb. 3, when prosecutors arrested Acosta at the presidential residence, Los Pinos. He worked on Fox’s travel staff as an advance man helping arrange the president’s trips around Mexico.

Coming on the heels of a scandal in which major drug traffickers were revealed to have the run of several maximum-security federal penitentiaries, the arrest seemed to confirm fears that narcotics cartels had penetrated the highest levels of the government.

Prosecutors had said they feared that Acosta was feeding information on the president’s whereabouts to drug traffickers and might be setting the president up for physical harm at the hands of the narcos.

But the case seemed to rest on highly circumstantial evidence. Prosecutors alleged that Acosta had received a single telephone call from an alleged top aide to Sinaloa drug trafficker Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. Through his attorney, Acosta denied ever talking to the aide, Arturo Beltran Leyva.

Acosta was also accused of receiving a $4,000 payment from Beltran and of visiting a house associated with him.

Acosta said the money was his personal savings and that the house in question was a coincidental stop on a house-hunting swing.

In a brief statement Saturday, Fox’s press office tried to put a positive spin on Acosta’s release, saying the judge’s order demonstrated the independence of the branches of government. Under the Fox administration, “the rule of law has been strengthened,” the statement said.