Camarena Case

I was surprised by The Times' editorial ("Excess of Zeal in Camarena Case?" Nov. 10) regarding the (murdered U.S. drug agent) Enrique Camarena case. You seem upset that our government has had to deal with unsavory people in order to make its case. Well, welcome to the real world. The drug trade is full of these people. You say that this case is being pursued with an "excess of zeal." How is this possible? Foreign drug lords kidnaped, tortured and murdered an agent of our government.

For the first time, a federal appeals court has ruled that a U.S. government-instigated kidnapping of an individual from another country violates international human rights law and that violation can be redressed in a U.S. court. The 3-0 ruling this week by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco stems from the April 1990 abduction of Mexican physician Humberto Alvarez Machain. Alvarez had been indicted in Los Angeles three months earlier on charges that he was involved in the 1985 kidnapping and murder of U.S. DEA Agent Enrique Camarena in Guadalajara.

Mexican businessman Ruben Zuno Arce was found guilty Monday of conspiring to kidnap and murder an American drug agent in 1985, ending a chapter in the intense investigation of the crime. Zuno, brother-in-law of former Mexican President Luis Echeverria Alvarez, closed his eyes and shook his head slowly as the jury verdicts were read. "Big injustice," he said in Spanish as he was led from the courtroom by U.S. marshals.

A government witness who claimed that federal prosecutors in Los Angeles pressured him to falsely implicate suspects in the 1985 kidnapping and murder of U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena has recanted his allegations against the prosecutors, the U.S. attorney's office said in a document filed in federal court Thursday.

The suspected killer of U.S. drug agent Enrique S. Camarena bribed a member of Mexico's Supreme Court and other Mexican judges in an effort to clear himself and another accused drug lord of charges in the case, U.S. investigators allege in court papers filed here this week.

Conspiracies hatched in hell don't have angels as witnesses. That may explain why the U.S. Justice Department appears to have signed a pact with the devil--several devils in fact--to bring to trial suspects accused of having helped murder U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena in 1985. Even the harsh reality of this brutal killing is unlikely to make those deals palatable to the taxpayers, footing a bill that has reached $2.

A list of prosecution witnesses scheduled to testify against the accused murderers of U.S. undercover drug agent Enrique Camarena indicates that the government's case partially relies on paid informants, accused drug dealers and a former Mexican law enforcement officer reputed to have killed 35 to 50 interrogation subjects.

A man arrested last week for allegedly taking part in the 1985 murder of two American tourists in Mexico had been negotiating to supply information to investigators probing the murder of a federal drug agent that same year, it was disclosed in federal court in Los Angeles Friday. Special Agent Abel Reynoso of the U.S.

One of the 14 suspects arrested this week in connection with the abduction and murder of U.S. narcotics agent Enrique S. Camarena has confessed to involvement in the kidnaping, the Mexican attorney general's office announced Thursday. Seven of the suspects are members of the Jalisco state judicial police. Camarena and Mexican pilot Alfredo Zavala Avelar were kidnaped in separate incidents on Feb. 7 in Guadalajara and found dead last week.

A Los Angeles federal judge Tuesday agreed to admit into evidence a 1985 telegram that could severely weaken the credibility of a key prosecution witness in the Enrique Camarena murder trial. The telegram was sent by Mexico-based U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Robert Castillo to his superiors in Washington. It dealt with revelations about the Jan.

Federal prosecutors Friday dismissed as "shameful" the allegations by a key witness that officials induced him to falsely implicate suspects in the 1983 kidnapping and murder of U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena in Mexico. The allegations were contained in a motion filed in October by Ruben Zuno Arce, who was seeking to overturn his conviction.

U.S. prosecutors dropped two murder charges earlier this year against a convicted drug trafficker implicated in the brutal slayings of several Americans a dozen years ago in Guadalajara, after questions were raised about the credibility of witnesses against him, records and interviews show.

Federal prosecutors withheld a politically volatile allegation from attorneys who were defending two men accused in the 1985 killing of U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena in Mexico, documents show. An informant who helped build the 1992 criminal case in Los Angeles contended that Mexico's president at the time of the slaying and a former president discussed Camarena with a drug lord who allegedly ordered the agent's kidnapping and murder two months later.

Twelve years after a U.S. drug agent was kidnapped, tortured and murdered in Mexico, evidence has emerged that federal prosecutors relied on perjured testimony and false information, casting a cloud over the convictions of three men now serving life sentences. The evidence suggests that the U.S. government, in its zeal to solve the heinous killing of Enrique Camarena, induced corrupt former Mexican police to implicate top officials there in a conspiracy to plan his kidnapping.

A federal appeals court in San Francisco on Tuesday ruled that a Mexican doctor who was kidnapped by U.S. drug agents can sue the U.S. government and the law enforcement officers involved in the abduction. Dr. Humberto Alvarez Machain was spirited out of Mexico on April 2, 1990, by men working for the Drug Enforcement Administration. He was turned over to DEA agents in this country, who suspected him of participating in the 1985 slaying of U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena.

Warren Reese, 65, a retired federal prosecutor who helped direct the investigation into the murder of Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Enrique Camarena. A native of East Los Angeles, Reese became a federal prosecutor in 1969. He was one of the two U.S. prosecutors who tried Daniel Ellsberg over his release of the Pentagon Papers concerning the Vietnam War. The trial judge dismissed that case after Ellsberg's psychologist's office was burglarized by Watergate intruders.

A federal judge in Los Angeles said Wednesday that he will conduct an inquiry to "get to the bottom" of allegations that improper influences may have been exerted on the jury that recently convicted all four defendants in the Enrique Camarena murder trial. U.S.

Charging that the American government has "lost its moral compass," lawyers for a Mexican gynecologist who was kidnaped at the behest of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration are urging President-elect Bill Clinton to prevent government agents from ever abducting another foreign national.

Mexican businessman Ruben Zuno Arce was found guilty Monday of conspiring to kidnap and murder an American drug agent in 1985, ending a chapter in the intense investigation of the crime. Zuno, brother-in-law of former Mexican President Luis Echeverria Alvarez, closed his eyes and shook his head slowly as the jury verdicts were read. "Big injustice," he said in Spanish as he was led from the courtroom by U.S. marshals.