WITNESSES' CREDIBILITY QUESTIONED; TRAFFICKER AVOIDS MURDER CHARGES

LOS ANGELES U.S. prosecutors dropped two murder charges earlier this
year against a convicted drug trafficker implicated in the brutal slayings
of several Americans a dozen years ago in Guadalajara, Mexico, after
questions were raised about the credibility of witnesses against him,
records and interviews show.

The same paid government informants were among those used to obtain
controversial convictions in the 1985 slaying of U.S. drug agent Enrique
Camarena, which defense attorneys are challenging and which the federal
government is reviewing.

Prosecutors say the decision to drop the murder charges was unrelated to
questions raised about the witnesses' credibility. But the dismissal has
been recently cited in a defense motion as further evidence that the
government no longer has confidence in its witnesses.

At issue is the decision to drop charges against Ezequiel Godinez, 55,
whose arrest in Texas last year initially had been portrayed as a major
breakthrough for investigators of the violent Guadalajara drug cartel
believed to be responsible for the kidnapping and murder of Camarena and
his pilot, as well as the slayings of six other U.S. residents.

Since 1989, Godinez had been sought on charges that he was part of a group
who stabbed two U.S. residents with ice picks and beat them to death after
they stumbled into a party of drug traffickers in a Guadalajara restaurant.

Witnesses also had linked Godinez to other slayings for which he was not
charged: the murders of Camarena and his pilot, and of four Jehovah's
Witnesses snatched off the streets while selling religious books door to door.

In March, federal prosecutors in Los Angeles dropped the only murder
charges against Godinez those connected to the restaurant slayings.
Instead, they settled for his guilty plea to drug trafficking and prison
escape charges, carrying a 26year sentence.

Relatives of the murder victims had pressed the government for years to
solve the crimes. But they said they knew nothing about Godinez's arrest
and reacted bitterly when told of the outcome.

"This is only one more instance in which the government has shown that they
did not care about the death of my husband," said Mary Evelyn Walker, whose
husband was killed in the restaurant.

Godinez's lawyer said the government had told him that its case against
Godinez was based on the testimony of three informants who also were
critical witnesses in the Camarena prosecutions. Statements from those
eyewitnesses depict Godinez as taking part in six brutal murders around the
time of the Camarena kidnapping a crime that triggered one of the most
farranging U.S. investigations ever.

At least two of the witnesses said Godinez participated in the restaurant
murders, according to witness statements obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
Two also said Godinez was present when Camarena was kidnapped, tortured and
killed. And at least one said Godinez sexually assaulted the two female
Jehovah's Witnesses and then was ordered by a drug lord to kill the women
and their husbands.

Godinez's attorney, William Harris, said prosecutors did not tell him that
the credibility of those witnesses was challenged in a sixvolume report a
few months earlier by an attorney who alleged that they falsely implicated
Mexican officials in the Camarena case.

Last week, Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Drooyan said the decision
to drop the charges was not based on concerns about witness credibility. He
said prosecutors concluded that the dismissal was the "best way to handle
it," given Godinez's age, the penalties he already was facing for drug
trafficking, and the fact that the murders were so old.

One defendant convicted of killing DEA agent Camarena is citing the
decision to drop the murder charges in his efforts to win a new trial.

The motion on behalf of Ruben Zuno Arce, the brotherinlaw of a former
Mexican president, contended the dismissal shows the government has
reservations about its own witnesses: "It is difficult to imagine why" it
would dismiss murder charges against Godinez unless officials now have
"substantial doubts as to the credibility" of their informants. Zuno is
serving a life sentence in a Texas federal prison.