MEXICO CITY (AP) Mexico's ousted drug czar, jailed on corruption charges,
says a top aide to a major trafficker met the secretary of defense and told
him of an alleged protection deal between government attorneys and drug
smugglers, Mexico City newspapers reported Friday.

The Defense Secretariat said top military officials met the aide one time,
but denied any wrongdoing.

The statements by disgraced Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo were the latest in
a series he has made suggesting that the Juarez cartel, Mexico's most
powerful drug smuggling organization, had attempted to corrupt some of the
nation's highest ranking officials.

Gutierrez's statements were carried Friday in leading Mexico City dailies,
including Reforma and La Jornada.

During testimony Thursday at a highsecurity prison outside Mexico City,
Gutierrez claimed that Defense Secretary Enrique Cervantes Aguilar had met
Eduardo Gonzalez Quirarte, a top Juarez cartel lieutenant, three times in
December 1996 and January 1997.

He said that during one meeting, Gonzalez informed the defense secretary of
an alleged agreement under which the Juarez cartel would pay a group of
government attorneys $60 million if the nowdefunct National Institute for
the Combat of Drugs halted operations against the smuggling organization.

Gutierrez said that during the last meeting, Gonzalez turned over important
information about cartel operations.

The Defense Secretariat said Friday that five top military officials had
met with Gonzalez only once, but they didn't know who he was at the time.

``They are trying to muddy honorable people, honest people,'' Brig. Gen.
Rafael Macedo de la Concha told Mexico's national radio Friday.

Macedo de la Concha, attorney general of military justice, said the army
alerted the Mexican attorney general's office about the meeting and
identified the man later as Gonzalez, the righthand man of Juarez cartel
chieftain Amado Carrillo Fuentes.

Gutierrez was arrested in February and charged with taking bribes to
protect Carrillo's organization. He has denied the charges, and repeatedly
has tried to implicate other officials in drug corruption.

Some experts believe Gonzalez was the liaison between drug traffickers and
Gutierrez.

Carrillo died in a Mexico City clinic on July 4 after undergoing cosmetic
surgery to change his appearance.