MEXICO TO PROBE SWISS CLAIMS, THOUGH MANY DOUBT SALINAS IS GUILTY

MEXICO CITY -- Mexican authorities said Wednesday that they have launched
an investigation into whether Raul Salinas de Gortari was a major
drug-trafficking figure during his brother's presidency, as Swiss officials
have charged.

The Mexicans announced their probe after Swiss officials moved Tuesday to
seize $114.4 million in European bank accounts, charging that it had come
from drug trafficking.

But even as the new investigation got under way here, many Mexicans cast
doubt on the Swiss allegation that Salinas was a kingpin who virtually
controlled the booming Mexican cocaine business in 1988-94, when his
brother Carlos was president.

Indeed, the Swiss charges, the product of a three-year investigation,
appeared to raise as many questions as they answered. If, in fact, Raul
Salinas played a central role in moving Colombian cocaine to the United
States, how much of the Mexican government had to be involved? And why did
U.S. anti-drug officials miss Salinas' alleged role?

"There is reason to doubt the testimony of all these witnesses who backed
up the accusation" of the Swiss authorities, said Jose Luis Ramos Rivera,
who has led Mexico's prosecution of Raul Salinas.

The witnesses, he added, are "people linked to drug trafficking, or who are
on trial for drug trafficking. Nonetheless, this doubt is not sufficient.
What we must do is verify and corroborate if these witnesses told the truth
or not."

Raul Salinas is already being tried in Mexico for illegal enrichment and
for allegedly ordering the murder of his brother-in-law, politician Jose
Francisco Ruiz Massieu. Jailed near the capital since 1995, but not
convicted here of any charge, Salinas has proclaimed his innocence and
called the Swiss charges "an absurd novel of narco-fiction."

In a letter written from his prison cell in central Mexico, Salinas accused
Swiss prosecutors of using questionable witnesses and exaggerating the size
of his accounts.

He repeated his denial of taking payoffs to ease drug shipments.

"I want to make clear my indignation at this contempt for Mexican
institutions and the innumerable racist allusions" made by a key Swiss
investigator, Raul Salinas wrote, according to excerpts from the letter
published Tuesday in Mexico City newspapers.

Former President Carlos Salinas also maintains his innocence. While he was
not targeted in the Swiss probe, many wonder how he could have avoided
knowing of his brother's activities. Carlos Salinas lives in self-imposed
exile in Europe.

The Swiss charges constituted an official endorsement of narcotics
accusations that have swirled around Raul Salinas since authorities in 1995
discovered more than $100 million in his Swiss bank accounts.

But the Swiss charges go further than previous accusations. They paint
Salinas as a godfather of the Mexican drug trade, who ushered tons of
cocaine through this country and over the border even as his brother was
being feted as a close U.S. ally.

That portrait of Raul Salinas was challenged Wednesday by Mexican
columnists, political analysts and officials.

Many noted that the Swiss chose to bring civil, not criminal, charges
against Salinas. The latter would have required a higher standard of evidence.

"I'm sure that if there was solid evidence to prove Salinas' complicity in
drug trafficking, criminal charges would have been pressed in Mexico, the
United States and Switzerland," wrote Sergio Sarmiento, a columnist for the
Mexico City daily Reforma.

While casting doubt on some of the Swiss findings, however, officials in
the Mexican attorney general's office announced that they have asked
permission to interrogate the witnesses in U.S. prisons.

Mexican authorities also announced that they would subpoena top anti-drug
officials and attorneys general from the Salinas administration. They plan
to question Mexican business executives who, according to Raul Salinas,
were the source of the millions of dollars in the Swiss bank accounts.
Salinas claims the money was for an investment fund he headed.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski