DRUG KINGPIN ESCAPES IN MEXICO

Authorities Accuse Prison Personnel Of Aiding His Flight

MEXICO CITY - A notorious drug trafficker who might have been the
intended target of the gunmen who killed Cardinal Juan Jes=FAs Posadas
Ocampo in 1993 escaped from a high-security prison in the state of
Jalisco late Friday, federal officials said.

The prison's director and 33 prison officers were arrested on
suspicion of aiding the escape.

The mysterious disappearance of Joaq=FAn Guzman Loera, known as
``Chapo,'' triggered a massive search in the Guadalajara area, where
the prison is located. Guzman, whose name is often mentioned alongside
the likes of the Arellano Felix brothers and other drug kingpins, was
serving time for various federal crimes, including bribery, and also
faced homicide charges, Mexico's Public Security Ministry said.

According to official reports, guards verified that Guzman was in his
cell at 9:25 p.m. Friday and that by 11:35 p.m. he appeared to have
vanished.

Mexican radio, meanwhile, reported that some neighbors of the prison
said their power went out mysteriously about 4 a.m. Saturday and a
small white plane was sighted flying overhead.

Authorities conducted a search of the prison grounds but found
nothing. Calling the crime ``lamentable,'' a security ministry
spokesman, Jorge Tello Peon, said at a news conference that ``it is
evident that to have done this, Mr. Guzman had to have counted on the
support of personnel we now have in custody.''

Those arrested included prison director Leonardo Beltran
Santana.

Tello also noted that the National Human Rights Commission had raised
concerns about lax security and preferential treatment at the prison
shortly before the escape.

Mexico's interior minister, Santiago Creel, later confirmed that
officials believed that Guzman's accomplices were among those prison
officials under arrest, and he promised he would do all he could to
get to the bottom of the case.

Guzman's escape came after a wild week of news events in Mexico that
included the kidnapping and mugging of a high-level Mexico City
official in a taxi, the killing of a child in a bomb attack in a
neighborhood of the capital and an attempt on the life of Chihuahua
Gov. Patricio Mart(acu)nez by a mentally ill former police officer.

In one of Mexico's most controversial unsolved mysteries, Guzman, by
some accounts, was the intended target when Cardinal Posadas, wearing
vestments, was gunned down at the Guadalajara airport in May 1993.
Rival drug-cartel members were said to have been trying to murder
Guzman and to have hit the cardinal by mistake.