Pubdate: Fri, 19 Apr 2002
Source: New York Times (NY)
Section: International
Copyright: 2002 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Tim Weiner
Related: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n722/a09.html
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/corrupt.htm (Corruption)

MEXICO RELEASES ALL BUT 9 OFFICIALS ARRESTED IN A CRACKDOWN

MEXICO CITY, April 18 -- Tijuana's police commander, detained last week 
along with 40 other officers suspected of drug corruption, was back on the 
job today, although federal prosecutors have not publicly cleared him and 
President Vicente Fox says he is still being investigated.

Prosecutors have said all the officers detained last week are still under 
suspicion. Only 9 of the 41 have been kept in jail and charged with taking 
payoffs from drug traffickers.

The rest have been freed, and at least one official, the state attorney 
general of Baja California, Antonio Martinez, contends that "they are not 
guilty of anything." Mr. Martinez said the Tijuana commander, Carlos Otal, 
had been privately exonerated by prosecutors.

Mr. Otal, along with 20 other Tijuana officials and 20 state police and 
municipal commanders, was arrested last week in a blaze of publicity, flown 
to Mexico City, suspended and accused of being on the payroll of the 
Arellano Felix drug cartel.

In Tijuana on Monday, hours after federal investigators started to free 
most of the officials, President Fox said they "continue to be under 
investigation." He asserted that the arrests, detentions and investigations 
proved no one was "above the law" in Mexico.

Crusaders against corruption in Tijuana wonder about that. Victor Clark 
Alfaro, a Tijuana professor who has campaigned against graft, called the 
case a farce, and Raul Ramirez, director of the Baja California Human 
Rights office, told Mr. Fox in a letter that the investigation was 
"frustrating and useless."

Those still under arrest include Mario Anaya, a Baja state police 
commander, and Juan Cristobal Aguilar, a former police chief of the city of 
Mexicali. Those freed include another state police commander, Sergio 
Riedel, who resigned today, and the police chief of the city of Tecate, 
Jesus Jacobo Aguirre.

Tijuana, Mexicali and Tecate are the three biggest Mexican cities on 
California's border, and billions of dollars in cocaine are thought to flow 
through them annually to the United States. Over the last decade, according 
to United States officials, the Arellano Felix cartel has paid as much as 
$1 million a week in bribes to local, state and federal officials.

The cartel, Mexico's most feared cocaine syndicate, has recently been 
battered by the arrest of its chief and the killing of his brother. But 
"the underlying political structure has not yet been affected," Mr. Clark 
Alfaro said. "Politicians have supported the Arellanos, and so have the 
military and police establishments. These pillars go untouched."
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