TEXAS REPORTER WAS MURDERED IN MEXICO, AUTHORITIES SAY

MEXICO CITY - A Texas journalist whose body was found in the wilds of
western Mexico was murdered, autopsy results showed Thursday, and some
American law enforcement sources privately suspect drug smugglers.

Philip True, 50, the Mexico City correspondent for the San Antonio Express
News, was killed in a remote corner of Jalisco state, where gangs of
marijuana and heroin traffickers have grown in strength in recent years. He
was strangled, Jalisco medical examiner Mario Rivas Souza said.

Sources at the Express-News, said there is also some evidence that the
journalist may have been sexually assaulted before his death.

"He could have stumbled onto something he wasn't supposed to see," one
source said. "Drug trafficking or something."

Although U.S. diplomatic sources said they hadn't seen any evidence of a
sexual assault, some American drug-trade experts said the possibility is
very real.

It isn't unusual, they say, for Mexican traffickers to use sexual abuse as a
tool of interrogation.

"Sexual torture is a favorite method of Mexican traffickers," said Phil
Jordan, former director of the El Paso Intelligence Center, jointly run by
the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI and other agencies. "And if
they tortured Philip, the only reason they would do it is to find out if he
was working for the DEA, the CIA or some other agency."

DEA Special Agent Enrique Camarena and DEA pilot Alfredo Zavala were
tortured before being murdered in Mexico in 1985. Agent Camarena's injuries
included three broken ribs and a broken right arm, and doctors suspected he
had been sexually assaulted.

Mr. Zavala was also sexually assaulted before being buried alive and
suffocating, a DEA autopsy report said.

In another chilling case in Mexico in 1985, two other Americans - Alberto
Radelat, a 32-year-old dental student from Fort Worth, and John Walker, a
36-year-old aspiring novelist - were killed after unwittingly walking into a
private party hosted by notorious trafficker Rafael Caro Quintero.

Desperados, a 1988 book about drug trafficking in Mexico, said that the drug
lord's men beat and kicked the two Americans, then Mr. Caro Quintero and
eight of his underlings "stabbed them with knives and ice picks for more
than half an hour."

Mr. Caro Quintero is in prison after being convicted of ordering Agent
Camarena's torture and slaying.

Mr. True had left for the rugged Sierra Madre Occidental on Nov. 29. On
Wednesday, a Huichol Indian told authorities there was a body at the bottom
of a ravine near a village called San Miguel Huaisita. Rescuers went to the
scene by helicopter but found only blood stains. The body was later found
half buried about a 30-minute walk away.

"The Huichol Indians are very religious. They may have seen the body and
dragged it away to bury it," said Jose Ramirez, a spokesman for the attorney
general in Jalisco state.

Mexican forensic experts say they suspect that Mr. True had been dead for
more than 10 days. They said the journalist was strangled to death, most
likely by a bandanna found around his neck.

Mr. Ramirez said he did not know whether Mr. True had been sexually
assaulted.

After the body was found, U.S. officials and many of the writer's colleagues
suspected that Mr. True may have slipped and fallen to his death.

Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo ordered state officials in Jalisco and
neighboring Nayarit on Thursday not to spare any expense in carrying out a
full investigation.

"The Mexican government condemns the violence and expresses sorrow over the
death of American journalist Philip True," the president's office said in a
statement.

Some of Mr. True's friends have speculated that he may have been robbed.
There has been no word as to whether the camera and backpack he was carrying
has been found; Jalisco officials said his watch and two rings were on the
body when they recovered it.

Carolina Garcia, managing editor of the Express-News, said the newspaper is
sending two staffers to Mexico to continue looking into the case.

"We are going to pursue this investigation very doggedly," she said.

She said she has not confirmed whether Mr. True was sexually assaulted but
called for "a full-scale investigation."

Jalisco was ranked fifth and Nayarit eight in drug cultivation in 1996, but
the growing of marijuana and poppies - used to make heroin - has been on the
rise, said Ignacio Rodriguez, a Mexican journalist who covers the drug
trade.

"I've been out there and been in little Podunk villages where there are
locals wearing huge gold necklaces and other jewelry," he said. "These guys
are smugglers and growers. Philip could have crossed paths with them. It
could have just been bad luck. He was in the wrong place, seeing something
they didn't want him to see."

Checked-by: Don Beck