Woman lawyer linked to drug world is shot dead in Mexico
Reuters News Service

GUADALAJARA, Mexico A 44yearold woman recently identified as
a key link between allegedly corrupt Mexican army officials and
drug traffickers was murdered Tuesday, officials said.

Irma Lizeth Ibarra Navaja, a lawyer, was gunned down by a hit man
riding a motorcycle at a street corner in the western city of
Guadalajara, authorities said. She later died in a hospital.

Witnesses said Ibarra arrived at the intersection in a gray
pickup when "a subject traveling on a motorcycle shot a firearm,"
Sergio Villa, a spokesman for the Jalisco State Attorney
General's Office, told Reuters.

"Six 9mm shells were found at the scene," he said.

On Sunday, the Mexican news magazine Proceso published what it
said were secret army documents into the investigation of active
and retired officers allegedly on the take from drug traffickers.

Ibarra was a "contact between groups of drug traffickers and
commanders of the 15th Military Zone," Proceso said, citing the
army documents.

That military zone was once commanded by Gen. Jesus Gutierrez
Rebollo, who was arrested and charged in February with being on
the payroll of Mexico's mostwanted drug kingpin.

The Proceso report named generals and other top officers who in
the last six years were allegedly given cars and other expensive
gifts from drug lords in exchange for protection.

The army then admitted that 34 mostly retired officers have been
arrested this year "for their presumed responsibility in drug
trafficking or for collaborating in it."

Earlier Tuesday, Mexican police detained for questioning the
lawyer who is defending the jailed general.

The lawyer, Tomas Arturo Gonzalez, was called to appear before
authorities on accusations that he attempted to bribe witnesses,
the Mexican Attorney General's Office said.

Gonzalez is one of four men defending Gutierrez Rebollo, the
former head of the National Institute for Combating Drugs.

Gonzalez was picked up at the maximumsecurity prison where
Gutierrez Rebollo is held as the lawyer was on his way to attend
a court hearing. Stunned family members of Gutierrez Rebollo
immediately protested the move.