Pubdate: Sun, 09 Jan 2000
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2000 The Washington Post Company
Address: 1150 15th Street Northwest, Washington, DC 20071
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Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Author: Molly Moore, Washington Post Foreign Service
Note: Staff writer Petula Dvorak contributed to this report.

MEXICAN DIG YIELDS DIPLOMATIC DISTRESS FBI ACCUSED OF EXAGGERATING EVIDENCE

MEXICO CITY - Nearly six weeks after a senior FBI official sparked a frenzy
by reporting that 100 bodies were believed to be buried on ranches near the
Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez, authorities have discovered the
remains of nine humans, two dogs and a drug-processing laboratory.

The original body count, based largely on what officials said was
information from a Mexican informant for the FBI, focused international
attention on the problems of Ciudad Juarez, a primary point for illegal
drugs to enter the United States. But now Mexican and U.S. officials say
the FBI hyped evidence in the case, thereby exacerbating political friction
between the two countries and frustrating residents, human rights officials
and others who have witnessed a decade of unsolved disappearances, killings
and other drug-related violence.

"People were expecting body after body to be unearthed - like digging up
carrots," one Mexican government official said. Instead, days of tedious
digging yielded only nine corpses. The excavation has now tapered off
substantially, and the FBI is no longer participating in the digging
operations.

FBI spokesman John Collingwood in Washington declined to comment on
criticism of the agency's initial guesses about the number of bodies, but
said, "Nobody could say with certainty how many bodies would actually be
located."

"Information came at various times from a variety of sources," Collingwood
added. "Regardless of the ultimate number of murder victims discovered, the
FBI had an obligation to investigate the disappearances of American citizens."

When the FBI offered the figure of 100 in late November, other U.S. law
enforcement and congressional officials were skeptical. Although violence
associated with Mexico's most powerful drug cartel, headquartered in Ciudad
Juarez, has contributed to hundreds of murders and disappearances in recent
years, experts said drug traffickers generally prefer that their victims be
found, serving as warnings to enemies, traitors and informants. Mexican
drug organizations have never been known to perform mass burials.

Mexican and U.S. officials familiar with the case said the FBI's high
estimate of the body count was based on interviews with an informant -
allegedly a former Mexican law enforcement official who said he had
participated in some of the burials - in combination with calculations that
nearly 200 people have disappeared from Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, just
across the border, in the past several years. In first publicly discussing
the figure of 100 bodies on Nov. 29, Deputy FBI Director Thomas J. Pickard
said that number was possible but also cautioned that it was an estimate.

In a private briefing with some senators and their staff members, FBI
officials indicated an informant had provided the agency with the names and
locations of up to 100 bodies.

"We said to each other afterward, 'Boy, this guy had some memory,' " said
one official present at the meeting.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, dubious of the information,
refused FBI requests to participate in the Ciudad Juarez operation,
according to a DEA official familiar with the discussion. "We didn't want
to touch it," the official said.

The FBI announcement initially was encouraging to the families of scores of
the disappeared who hoped, with trepidation, that the excavations might
bring closure to the unresolved cases of their loved ones. In the first two
weeks of digging, numerous family members and friends stood along the
perimeters of the suspected burial sites in anticipation of information.

So far, Mexican and FBI forensics officials examining the remains have made
no positive identifications, although Mexican newspapers have reported that
several bodies were found with identification documents such as driver's
licenses. In addition, no suspects have been identified in the killings.

However, the FBI's Collingwood said, "Resolving a tragic loss for even one
family makes the effort worthwhile."

U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation
said they believe the FBI informant, hoping to win concessions from the
agency, oversold the extent of his information.

Mexican authorities said they have scaled back operations and now have only
a small crew of representatives from the attorney general's office
continuing investigations at one of the four sites on the outskirts of
Ciudad Juarez. The Mexican army is no longer participating in the
operations, according to a spokesman for the attorney general.

Mexican officials said the attorney general's office originally believed
that the investigation could be kept secret and that officials were
dismayed when the FBI went public with its information.

The case created a political furor in Mexico, with nationalistic television
networks and newspapers attacking the FBI involvement in the case as an
inappropriate intervention in Mexican affairs. But in recent weeks, both
the FBI and the Mexican attorney general's office have billed the
continuing, but slower paced, investigation as a significant cooperative
effort between the two countries.

With operations continuing at only one site, however, most of the
cooperation between the agencies involves the forensic analyses of the
excavated remains.

Staff writer Lorraine Adams in Washington contributed to this report.
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