KEY PLAYER IN MEXICO'S POWER POLITICS DIES IN U.S.

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's former top drug prosecutor, accused of money
laundering and aiding narcotics traffickers, died of an apparent drug
overdose yesterday in New Jersey, adding another twist to a five-year saga
of murder, corruption and betrayal among Mexico's political elite.

Mario Ruiz Massieu, 48, was a key player in Mexican power politics and
analysts said his death will likely make it more difficult to understand
the political slayings that rocked Mexico in 1994.

Ruiz Massieu's family was part of the upper crust of Mexico's political
elite and had strong ties to former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari.

Ruiz Massieu's brother, Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, a top official in the
ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, was gunned down in Mexico City on
Sept. 28, 1994. That killing came just six months after the murder of the
party's presidential candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio.

Mario Ruiz Massieu, then deputy attorney general, was put in charge of the
investigation into his brother's death.

At first, Ruiz Massieu impressed Mexicans, issuing explosive charges that
PRI hard-liners opposed to political reforms appeared to be behind the
murder. On Nov. 22, 1994, Ruiz Massieu abruptly resigned, accusing the
party of interfering with the probe.

His accusations helped set off a wave of capital flight and rocked the
Mexican stock market.

But in March 1995, he was arrested at the Newark airport on his way to
Spain, with $45,000 of undeclared cash in his briefcase. He had been
interrogated earlier that day by a Mexican special prosecutor about the
murder of his brother.

Mexico immediately demanded Ruiz Massieu's extradition, charging that he
had covered up for one of the participants in his own brother's murder. The
suspect was none other than Raul Salinas de Gortari, brother of the former
president, who was convicted this year in the murder.

Authorities accused Ruiz of intimidating and torturing witnesses to hide
the identity of the mastermind behind the murder.

U.S. officials subsequently discovered Ruiz Massieu, a moderately paid
civil servant, held millions of dollars in Texas bank accounts. Ruiz
Massieu claimed the money was from a family fortune and multimillion-dollar
bonuses, which he said President Salinas routinely gave senior Mexican
officials.

Mexican authorities have charged him with abuse of authority, embezzlement,
drug smuggling, and money laundering but did not produce enough evidence to
persuade U.S. courts to extradite him.

He was charged with laundering drug profits for the Juarez cartel, once run
by Amado Carrillo Fuentes, the drug lord who died in 1997 while undergoing
plastic surgery. He has been under house arrest for four years and was to
appear in a Houston court tomorrow to answer a 25-count federal indictment
alleging that he laundered more than $9 million through a Texas bank account.

His sister, Maricela Ruiz Massieu, said he was innocent.

Javier Olea, a lawyer for Ruiz Massieu in Mexico City, said his client
feared going to prison and was depressed and out of money for his legal
defense.

"He took a great many secrets to his grave. He would have been an ideal
witness for getting inside information on the Salinas family," said Tom
Cash, a money-laundering specialist and former official with the Drug
Enforcement Administration.

"This struggle for power, this level of corruption has the makings of a
Shakespearean tragedy," said historian and political commentator Lorenzo
Meyer. "No one knows exactly who killed the first Ruiz Massieu (Jose
Francisco), nor Colosio. No one will be able to untangle this series of
killings."

Still, Meyer held out some hope that Mario Ruiz Massieu might have left
some kind of a document behind.

"The best service he could have done for Mexico is to not go to the grave
with his secrets," said Meyer. "And he had lots of secrets."

Ruiz Massieu's U.S. attorney, Cathy Fleming, was expected today to reveal
contents of a note left by her client.