FBI LETTER ALLEGES CARTEL HAD ROLE IN ATTACK ON CHIHUAHUA GOVERNOR

El Paso's FBI told Mexican federal authorities that the Juarez drug cartel
might be responsible for the Jan. 17 shooting attack against Chihuahua Gov.
Patricio Martinez, according to a letter from the FBI.

Martinez, who plans to discuss the matter with Mexican President Vicente
Fox, complained that Mexican federal authorities failed to tell him about
the FBI's information.

"In three months since the shooting, we've had nothing but silence from the
federal authorities," said Martinez, after learning about the alleged plot
this week through leaked reports to the Mexican news media.

The governor, who survived a bullet wound to the back of the head, also
said that someone is trying to kill Victoria Loya, the former state
policewoman who was jailed after she allegedly shot Martinez at the
governor's palace in Chihuahua City.

"The FBI was in possession of very limited intelligence received from a
confidential informant which indicated that Vicente Carrillo Fuentes wanted
to assassinate Patricio Martinez," according to an FBI letter dated Jan.
30, 2001.

Carrillo Fuentes is the alleged leader of the Juarez drug cartel.

The FBI's reference to Martinez was in response to a question by Mexican
federal authorities about whether the FBI had any information regarding a
plot to slay Martinez.

The FBI letter, which does not elaborate, stated that "this information was
provided to PGR official Dr. Miguel Aragon" by the FBI.

Aragon was one of the Mexican investigators assigned to the 1999
U.S.-Mexico "mass graves" investigation in Juarez.

El Paso FBI Special Agent Al Cruz said, "We're not going to comment further
beyond what was already in the (Jan. 30) written communication."

Martinez's spokesman, Antonio Garcia, said, "The governor was upset because
no one from either the PGR (Mexican federal attorney general) or the FBI
ever told him about this ... even if it turned out later to be untrue."

"The PGR had this information in January, the same month Governor Martinez
was shot," Garcia said.

Jose J. Campos Murillo, a federal deputy attorney general in Mexico City,
said in a prepared statement that federal investigators had not taken the
Martinez case because Chihuahua officials before said they wanted to handle
it themselves.

"Nothing could be done to prevent the attack because it occurred before the
FBI's information was communicated to us," he said, adding that federal
officials offered to assist Chihuahua officials in any way possible.

Garcia said it makes no sense for Carrillo Fuentes to want to assassinate a
state official, "considering that only federal authorities have
jurisdiction over drug-related crimes."

Chihuahua state Secretary General Victor Anchondo, who served as interim
governor while Martinez was in rehabilitation at a Phoenix hospital, said
state officials have uncovered a separate plot against Loya.

"One of our state commanders received a tip (last week) that Loya was going
to feign illness so she could be taken to a hospital outside the prison,
and that once she was at the hospital, someone would help her escape,"
Anchondo said.

Based on the tip, prison officials searched her cell and found two capsules
of liquid mercury, which they confiscated.

Anchondo said "our specialists determined that if she had ingested those
capsules, she would have died within minutes."

"This leads us to believe," Anchondo said, "that some third parties want to
disappear or kill Loya, to shut her up and keep her from testifying about
who might be behind this."

Last year, U.S. officials charged Carrillo Fuentes in the deaths of several
men who were unearthed during the 1999 binational investigation and in the
1994 deaths of former Chihuahua state police Commander Jose Refugio "Cuco"
Rubalcava and his two sons.

The FBI's Jan. 30 letter also identifies several suspects known formerly
only by codes assigned to them as "former Juarez municipal police
officers/agents who are allegedly members of the CFO (Carrillo Fuentes
Organization). The men assist the CFO by kidnapping, interrogating, and
executing individuals and providing protection for drug loads."

According to the letter, "El 00 is Saul David Licona Hernandez, a former
Juarez municipal police officer. Licona reportedly also uses the code names
'El 01,' 'M1' and 'El Director.' Licona reportedly controls much of the
CFO's drug-trafficking activities in Juarez, Chihuahua."

Juarez Police Commissioner Jorge Ostos said none of the names mentioned by
the FBI are of police officers currently on his staff.

Diana Washington Valdez may be reached at dvaldez@elpasotimes.com