GOVERNMENT AND CHURCH REVIEWERS AGREE TO DISAGREE ON MEXICAN
CARDINAL'S SLAYING

MEXICO CITY, July 27 -- After years of investigations, federal, state
and church authorities said today that they had agreed to disagree
about the events that led to the slaying of one of Mexico's two Roman
Catholic cardinals in 1993 in a shootout at an airport.

In a news conference on the latest review of evidence, which itself
took two years, federal prosecutors ridiculed suggestions that the
prelate was the target of a conspiracy, and they stood by the
conclusion of the initial investigation.

They said the cardinal, Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo, was shot to death
in an afternoon of gunfire and mayhem at the Guadalajara airport by
narcotics traffickers who mistook him for a rival drug lord.

But top officials from Jalisco State, where the slaying occurred, and
church leaders who participated in the review, cast doubts, noting
that the first investigation was secretly led by a general who was
later found to be working for the narcotics cartels. The Jalisco
officials also cited signs of evidence tampering, pressuring of
witnesses and other irregularities in the full investigation, which
spanned seven years.

The divergent conclusions mean that a cloud of doubt will linger about
the slaying, which was a signal for many Mexicans about the reckless
arrogance of the drug lords and the power that they had accumulated as
Mexico's marijuana and opium crops proliferated and its importance
grew as a smuggling route for Colombian cocaine.

The final report today by a committee that included representatives of
the attorney general, the Jalisco government and the Catholic Church
brings the lengthy inquiry to a close.

In the first months of the investigation, the authorities learned that
Cardinal Posadas approached the airport on May 24, 1993, at just the
moment in which gunmen led by Ramon Arellano Felix, a leader of the
main cocaine-smuggling organization in the Mexican state that borders
California, opened fire on a rival cartel based in the states south of
Arizona. That group was led by Joaquin Guzman Loera and Hector Palma
Salazar.

For months, members of the rival gangs had been killing each other in
shootouts at discos and restaurants. The airport became an inferno as
the gangs exchanged automatic fire.

Cardinal Posadas, 66, was at the airport to pick up the papal nuncio,
who was arriving for a visit. As he sat in his car at the terminal,
Cardinal Posadas was shot 14 times at close range. At least six other
bystanders were also killed.

In the weeks after the shooting, Mr. Guzman Loera and dozens of gunmen
who had participated in it, including federal and Jalisco state police
officers found to be working for him, were arrested and put on trial
for drug crimes and for their involvement in the airport shooting. Mr.
Palma Salazar was jailed two years later. Mr. Arellano has not been
arrested.

"This was a terrible killing that occurred by accident," a top
prosecutor, Jose Luis Ramos, said at the news conference today as
Attorney General Jorge Madrazo Cuellar listened.

But officials from the Jalisco government led by Gov. Alberto Cardenas
Jimenez, a member of President-elect Vicente Fox's center-right party,
disputed the federal conclusion, and two bishops who represented the
Catholic Church's episcopal conference said they shared those doubts.

"This was a premeditated homicide," said Fernando Guzman Perez, the
No. 2 official in the Jalisco government. "This was no accident."

To explain that view, Mr. Guzman noted that federal prosecutors had
originally said Cardinal Posadas had been killed in cross-fire, until
ballistic tests showed that he had been shot point-blank. He also
noted that prosecutors had changed the testimony of several witnesses
and that official documents and videotapes from the investigation had
gone missing in the investigation.

An especially troubling aspect, Mr. Guzman said, was that Gen. Jesus
Gutierrez Rebollo, the general in charge of the Guadalajara region,
rather than civilian prosecutors, had led the original investigation,
in which suspects were interrogated and evidence stored at an army
base.

General Gutierrez was later arrested and is on trial for drug crimes,
accused as a longtime associate of Mexico's largest drug
organization.

"For the church, this case is not closed," said Cardinal Juan Sandoval
Iniguez, Cardinal Posadas's successor and a review participant.