FORMER FEDERAL AGENT IS KILLED AT MEXICO CITY HOTEL

MEXICO CITY - In the latest of a new wave of brazen, apparently
drug-related attacks, gunmen opened fire on a former federal agent as he
walked into a Mexico City hotel, wounding him and killing his bodyguard.
Cuauhtemoc Herrera Suastegui, who was coordinator of the organized crime
unit of the attorney general's office until he resigned in mid-January, is
under investigation by his former agency for alleged links to a drug
organization.

Herrera was entering the Imperial Hotel with the bodyguard and two women on
Thursday afternoon when the gunmen - at least two outside and two inside -
began to shoot, officials said.

The bodyguard, Sergio Alberto Chavez, died at the scene. Herrera was in
stable condition at a hospital, and was being questioned by city and
federal agents, the Mexican attorney general's office said.

Officials initially said that Herrera had died, but later retracted that.

Six people were detained, including the hotel manager. Authorities believed
a seventh had fled the scene.

At the attorney general's office, Herrera had been in charge of the
operations that resulted in the capture of infamous Mexican kidnappers
Daniel Arizmendi and Andres Caletri. Before that, he had been assigned to
the border city of Tijuana, where many officials are on the payroll of drug
groups.

The attorney general's office said that while Herrera was being called to
testify about his links to the Juarez drug organization, there was not
enough evidence to bring charges against him.

Herrera had been linked to the Juarez group by the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration's head of international operations, William E. Ledwith, in
testimony Feb. 29 before the U.S. Congress' Subcommittee on Criminal
Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources.

Ledwith said that Herrera continued to work for the attorney general's
office after failing a lie-detector test administered by U.S. officials in
1998 and after allegations that he had provided assistance to the Juarez
organization.

A federal official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated
Press early today that Herrera had prepared a defense arguing that his
links with the Juarez organization were part of his job in investigating
the group, and that he had passed a second lie detector test.

He argued that his former boss, who has also since resigned, had approved
all his activities. Herrera fell under suspicion, the official said, when
raids on suspected properties of the drug gang turned up documents with
Herrera's name on them.

Herrera also planned to claim that he earned the enmity of the DEA by
urging Mexican officials not to disclose information about their
investigation to the Americans for reasons of sovereignty, the official said.

One of the women accompanying Herrera during the attack identified herself
to police as a court official from the northern state of Monterrey. The
federal official said she was Herrera's lawyer.

The other was an agent in the anti-drug unit of the attorney general's
office, authorities said.

After a relatively quiet period in Mexico's drug battles, a series of
attacks in recent months has cast new attention on the groups' impunity and
raised the possibility that Mexico has entered a new cycle of high-profile
violence.

On Feb. 9, attackers with automatic rifles shot and killed one of Tijuana's
most prominent attorneys, his wife, his son and a security guard. The
gunmen fired at least 50 bullets at Rodolfo Gallardo Hernandez, police said.

On Feb. 22, gunmen shot to death Juan Angel Cabrera Leal, the police chief
of Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Texas.

Five days later, Tijuana Police Chief Alfredo de la Torre was gunned down
on a busy highway in broad daylight; the gunmen fired at least 99 bullets
into his car. Authorities said the killing appeared to be a drug-related hit.

On March 8, a top official for the attorney general's office apparently
killed himself in Mexico City after officials began to discover millions of
dollars hidden in bank safe deposit boxes. He said in a suicide note that
the money didn't come from drugs, but he held a top post in the agency that
prosecutes all major drug crimes.

On March 15, a lawyer for a man accused of being a major drug trafficker
was found dead with his hands and feet tied and a plastic bag covering his
head. Gustavo Galvez Reyes had been trying to win the release of Jesus
Labra, a Tijuana businessman suspected of being a leading drug figure.