SALINAS BROTHER'S MEXICAN TRIAL AT FINAL STAGES

ALMOLOYA DE JUAREZ, Mexico, Dec 9 (Reuters) - The brother of former Mexican
President Carlos Salinas, Raul Salinas, again pleaded innocent to murder
charges in a final day of testimony on Wednesday that signalled the
45-month-long case is ending.

Raul Salinas has been held in Almoloya maximum security jail near Mexico
City since February 1995 for allegedly plotting the assassination of top
politician Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu in September 1994, months before his
brother stepped down from the presidency.

"They are blaming me for a murder I did not commit," Salinas told Judge
Ricardo Ojeda in the open court hearing.

Ojeda has 30 days to reach a verdict and possible sentence.

Raul Salinas says he is simply a political hostage.

"My imprisonment in Almoloya obeyed a political decision rather than a legal
decision, and the public lynching and fabricated accusations are some of the
means used against us," he said.

Two years ago, Mexican prosecutors acting on tips from a fortune-teller amid
a media fanfare dug up a body at a ranch belonging to Raul Salinas, which
they said at the time could be conclusive evidence of his guilt.

Prosecutors speculated the body was of a legislator also involved in the
Ruiz Massieu case who had allegedly been murdered afterward by Raul Salinas.
It was later identified as the body of a relative of the fortune-teller
which had been removed from a graveyard.

The only member of Raul Salinas's immediate family to attend Wednesday's
hearing was his sister Adriana, who was once married to the victim Ruiz
Massieu.

Carlos Salinas left Mexico in disgrace shortly after Raul's arrest and lives
in Dublin, Ireland.

Raul Salinas is also on trial for embezzlement, which he also denies.

In October Swiss authorities confiscated more than $100 million in numbered
accounts traced to him which they said came from payoffs from drug lords in
return for his arranging safe passage for Colombian cocaine through Mexico
to the United States.

Salinas's lawyers say that the money was a legally constituted investment
fund set up by Mexican businessmen and that he had used false names only to
spare his brother any embarrassment.

Swiss police began investigating the accounts in November 1995 when Raul
Salinas's wife was caught trying to withdraw more than $80 million from a
Swiss bank using a forged passport.

Checked-by: Don Beck