2ND LAWYER FOR CARTEL FIGURE SLAIN

Was 'Well-planned Execution,' Official Says; No Arrests Made

MEXICO CITY -- An attorney defending the accused financial mastermind of
the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix drug cartel has been slain in the second
such incident in less than four months. The brazen daytime killing of
Eugenio Zafra Garca, 65, sent a chill through Mexico's legal community.

Zafra's clients included the cartel's alleged financial adviser, Jesus
"Chuy" Labra Aviles, a Tijuana businessman arrested in March while watching
his son play football. The body of another Labra attorney, Gustavo Galvez
Reyes, 32, was found wrapped in a blanket and dumped on a Mexico City
street three days after Labra's arrest.

"The only thing that this has done is that nobody is going to want to take
on this kind of case," said Jose Neira, president of the State of Mexico
Bar Association to which Zafra belonged for 27 years.

Zafra and his wife were in a late-model Chevrolet near their home in the
city of Toluca on Sunday when a gunman standing less than a yard away fired
a 9 mm pistol, witnesses told police. Zafra was hit four times, but his
wife was not injured. The killer fled on foot, joining an accomplice
waiting nearby.

"This was a very well-planned execution," said Eliseo Lugo Plata, a
spokesman for the Attorney General's Office in the state of Mexico.

Zafra had received several threatening phone calls at home the previous
week, Lugo said. No motive had been determined for the crime, and no
arrests had been made late last night.

The two slain lawyers had worked together on Labra's defense, and Zafra was
one of the last people to speak to Galvez before the younger lawyer's death.

Zafra is the latest in a growing circle of victims linked to the Arellano
Felix cartel, described as one of the most powerful and violent in Mexico.

In November, gunmen shot attorney Joaqun Baez Lugo in the middle of the day
as he got into his car on a busy street in Tijuana. Baez represented a
number of suspected members of the Arellano cartel.

"Who would be killing the lawyers for these guys? It doesn't make sense,"
said Charles La Bella, former interim U.S. attorney for San Diego.

La Bella, who no longer works in the judicial system, was among the few who
agreed to have their names used when commenting on Zafra's death.

"No one even wants to say, 'Darn those guys,' for attribution," said a U.S.
criminal lawyer who has represented defendants in drug cases. "I've talked
to several (Mexican) lawyers who said they won't represent any criminal
clients. I would say they are quite afraid.

"For a hundred years, lawyers took on clients, not expecting to be
identified with their clients, but with their work. Now, someone down there
is changing the rules."

La Bella offered three possible scenarios for Zafra's death.

Mexican law enforcement agents could have killed him. Or the Arellano
cartel -- or a rival cartel -- could have given the order.

"Why was he hit? I think people are going to wait and see what the word is
on the street," La Bella said yesterday.

For more than two decades, Zafra specialized in civil and commercial law.
But over the past four or five years, he took on a growing list of clients
facing drug-related charges.

Zafra also represented Ismael Higuera Guerrero, who was arrested May 3 at a
residence outside Ensenada. Shortly after Higuera's arrest, the U.S.
Attorney's Office in San Diego unsealed an indictment charging him with
money laundering and drug trafficking, and requested his extradition to the
United States. Higuera also faces a homicide charge in Baja California for
his alleged role in the 1994 slaying of a federal police commander.

Alleged Arellano associate Arturo "Kitty" Paez also was Zafra's client.
Paez's highly publicized extradition to the United States has been dragging
through the Mexican legal system for more than two years.

Another Zafra client, Alfredo Hodoyan, is charged in the killing of Ernesto
Ibarra Santes, a federal police commander in Tijuana. The United States
extradited Hodoyan to Mexico last year.

Hodoyan, Higuera, Paez and Labra are in the maximum security prison
Almoloya de Juarez outside Mexico City.

Zafra was of the few well-regarded attorneys who openly took on such
high-profile drug cases, said Neira, the bar association president.

"He was extremely honest and honorable," Neira said. "He lived modestly."

Neira said Zafra began taking on Tijuana clients after he was hired to
represent Vicente and Rodolfo Mayoral, a father and son jailed in
connection with the March 1994 assassination of Luis Donaldo Colosio in
Tijuana.

He got the Mayorals acquitted.