MEXICAN GOVERNOR DENIES HE IS DRUG USER, TRAFFICKER

MEXICO CITY, March 20 (Reuters) - A Mexican governor under investigation
for suspected drug links detailed the charges against him, ranging from
cocaine use to lending air hangars to drug traffickers, but denied them
all, media reported on Saturday.

Mexico's Attorney General's Office (PGR) says Mario Villanueva, governor of
the Caribbean state Quintana Roo that includes the world famous resort
Cancun, is being investigated for possibly abetting the drug trade.

The PGR has yet to detail any specific allegations against Villanueva, but
the governor, who repeatedly has denied any links to drug cartels, spelled
them out Friday.

He denied all the PGR's charges, which he said included that his drug links
are widely known publicly in Quintana Roo, that he has lent a state hangar
to drug traffickers to load and unload cocaine, that he personally has met
with and granted protection to drug lords, and that he personally uses
cocaine.

"They are fabricating evidence," Villanueva alleged.

Quintana Roo, on the Yucatan peninsula, has a long and desolate Caribbean
coast that officials say has become a major conduit for Colombian cocaine
making its way to the United States.

Speaking during an annual address by the chief justice of the Quintana Roo
Supreme Court, Villanueva's nearly hourlong discourse was carried live by
most of the radio stations in the southeastern state, Reforma newspaper said.

He blasted the government for harassing him with an illegal and politically
motivated probe.

"The action by the Attorney General's Office continues to violate the law.
They are carrying out a perverse plot," Villanueva said.

Villanueva belongs to President Ernesto Zedillo's Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI), which has ruled Mexico uninterrupted for 70 years.

On Feb. 21 the PRI candidate for governor, Joaquin Hendricks Diaz, easily
outdistanced rivals from opposition parties and will take over from
Villanueva on April 5.

In an interview with Reuters last month, Villanueva said, "The things they
have published about me are all lies, I have no links to drug-trafficking."