3 AGENTS' DEATHS IN BAJA RULES 'SUSPICIOUS'

SAN DIEGO--Baja California's chief medical examiner Thursday ruled
"suspicious" the deaths of three Mexican drug agents whose battered bodies
were found near a smashed car off a mountain highway between Tijuana and
Mexicali.

Francisco Acuna Campa, head of the state medical examiner's office in
Mexicali, said fatal head wounds shared by all three and other injuries
suggested that the federal agents may have been killed before the car
plunged off a treacherous stretch into a ravine more than 300 feet below
this week.

Acuna said the agents suffered head wounds caused by a blunt object that
"could be a pipe or a bat."

Although he did not rule out that the three may have died in a crash, he
said it was unlikely. Some injuries appeared to have occurred after death,
Acuna said. "There is violence and suspicious circumstances," he said during
a telephone interview.

If the three prove to have been slain, the incident would be the latest in a
wave of apparent drug violence in and around Tijuana--home base of the
feared Arellano Felix drug gang--and the first time in years that so many
federal drug agents were killed at once. The city's police chief was
assassinated Feb. 27.

Federal authorities in Mexico City said the three had been sent to Baja
California on March 1 as part of a beefed-up effort to investigate the flow
of heroin, cocaine and other drugs smuggled into the United States.

Announcing the deaths Wednesday, the head of Mexico's anti-drug forces,
Mariano Herran Salvatti, displayed photographs of the battered bodies and
asserted that the deaths "could be a message" to authorities. But, he vowed,
"we will continue with the same vigor, and redouble our efforts in the fight
against criminal organizations."

Baja investigators initially labeled the deaths accidental, saying the car
apparently was going too fast on the hazardous Tijuana-Mexicali highway. But
Acuna said the similarity of wounds was unusual because injuries during car
crashes tend to differ depending on where victims are seated.

The bodies were found late Tuesday near the agents' official white Chevrolet
in a deep ravine. They had been reported missing Monday.

The deaths were a blow to U.S. law enforcement officials, with whom the
three had shared information on the narcotics trade. The agents were last
seen in San Diego on Monday. They kept residences in San Diego and stayed
there Sunday for safety reasons and to provide intelligence to U.S.
officials, Herran Salvatti said.

"It's another example of the steps the drug cartels will take any time they
feel threatened," said William Gore, special agent in charge of the FBI
office in San Diego. "It's a shock and a loss, but it's not a surprise."

The group's senior member, Jose Patino Moreno, was a ranking drug prosecutor
long familiar to U.S. authorities. The other agents were identified as Oscar
Pompa Plaza, a veteran agent, and Rafael Torres Bernal, an army captain on
loan to the anti-narcotics effort.

The three had focused on three investigations in Tijuana: one into the
Arellano Felix brothers, who allegedly lead the Tijuana cartel; another into
the gang's alleged financial mastermind, Jesus Labra Aviles, who was
arrested March 13; and a third into Labra's recently slain lawyer, Gustavo
Galvez Reyes.

The three agents also were investigating a drug group in Mexicali, Herran
Salvatti said.

Acuna said his findings would be forwarded to state prosecutors as part of a
probe to determine whether the deaths were homicides or accidental. The
federal attorney general's office also is investigating