Mexico says drug trafficking DVD won't cost federal investigators their jobs

By Will Weissert

ASSOCIATED PRESS

7:56 a.m. December 5, 2005

MEXICO CITY – Mexico's top anti-drug prosecutor will not lose his job despite doubts about whether federal agents were involved in the videotaped beating and torture of four drug hit men, a government spokesman said Monday.

Ruben Aguilar, chief spokesman for President Vicente Fox, said that no federal investigator was in danger of being fired in the wake of the recording, which has sent shock waves through Mexico's anti-narcotics efforts.

"It doesn't put anyone at risk" of losing their jobs, Aguilar said during his daily briefing with reporters.

But he refused to comment on a contradiction between the statements of Deputy Attorney General Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos – Mexico's top drug trafficking and organized crime investigator – and Attorney General Daniel Cabeza de Vaca.

Santiago Vasconcelos said last week that investigators were gathering evidence to charge 11 federal agents who had been hired by drug smugglers to kidnap and torture the people in the video. He said eight of those suspects had been arrested, but late Friday a judge freed five because of a lack of evidence.

On Sunday, Cabeza de Vaca said that there was no solid evidence yet that any federal agents were involved.

Aguilar refused to comment at length on the discrepancy, saying only that the president supports the comments made by his attorney general.

The video shows grainy images of four men sitting bruised, bloody and bound before a curtain of black garbage bags. Prodded by an unseen interrogator, they describe themselves as hit men for the Gulf Cartel, detailing how they kidnapped, tortured and killed their enemies.

They also say they worked with Mexican law enforcement agencies.

In one section of the video a hand clutching a gun appears and shoots one of the men in the head.

The DVD, time-stamped May 16, was sent anonymously to the Kitsap Sun in Bremerton, Washington, last month. The newspaper forwarded the recording to the Dallas Morning News, which released it, along last week.

You have to understand that in Mexico "la mordida" or bride is how nearly all law enforcement conduct their affairs. No matter what you are accused of, with enough money you can go free. - mm