MEXICAN AGENTS' DEATHS NO ACCIDENT

Drug Fighters Slain Before Vehicle Crash

TIJUANA -- Three Mexican anti-drug agents whose bodies were found late
Tuesday off a treacherous mountain road were slain before their car rolled
into a ravine, the Mexican Attorney General's Office said yesterday.

The findings rule out the possibility that the deaths were accidental, as
some authorities suggested after the bodies were found yards from their
crashed Chevrolet Lumina.

The victims worked for the Feads, an elite anti-drug unit of the Mexican
Attorney General's Office, and were investigating the Arellano Félix drug
cartel. They had been cooperating closely with U.S. officials, and their
deaths shocked law enforcement officials on both sides of the border.

The group's leading member was José Patiño Moreno, 48, a special prosecutor
assigned to the unit since March. Killed with him were Oscar Pompa Plaza,
41, also a special prosecutor, and army Capt. Rafael Torres Bernal, 29.

They had participated in the investigation that led to last month's
detention in Tijuana of Jesús "Chuy" Labra Aviles, alleged to be the
financial mastermind of the Arellano Félix brothers.

Patiño had also been investigating a group of suspected drug traffickers in
Mexicali, the Campos Salcido brothers, and had carried out search warrants
on 12 of their properties.

Colleagues began to suspect foul play after Patiño missed a meeting at 10
a.m. Monday at the Feads office in Tijuana.

All three men died as a result of head injuries, the Attorney General's
Office found, reaching the same conclusion as the Baja California Medical
Examiner's Office, which conducted the initial autopsy.

The men's injuries included multiple fractures of the cranium, face and
lower jaw, as well as multiple fractures of the thorax, the Attorney
General's Office reported. The findings "are not compatible with the kinds
of injuries produced in an accident involving motor vehicles," the report
said.

The agents' car was found about 200 yards down a steep ravine, off a
descending two-lane road whose dangerous curves have claimed scores of lives
in recent years.

Investigators with the federal highway patrol in Baja California initially
concluded that the agents' car had been speeding and ran off the road,
pointing to skid marks on the road and nearby dirt shoulder.

But the Attorney General's Office discounted those findings, saying that the
light skid marks were in the wrong direction.

The vehicle's ignition was turned on and the car was in drive when it ran
off the road, the Attorney General's Office said. But it said the position
of the front tires showed that "no effort was made to prevent the car from
leaving the asphalt and thus plunging into the void."

Patiño's back bore tire marks, which likely injured his thorax and other
organs, the report said. But the tire track was not caused by the Lumina,
leading investigators to conclude that "it was another type of tire that
caused the mark and injuries, and showed that the injuries were caused at a
different time and place than the one being investigated."