MEXICO CITY(Reuter) Top Mexican military leaders may have accepted gifts in
return for protecting the nation's most powerful drug lords, a magazine
reported Sunday.

Proceso weekly magazine quoted topsecret documents from a sixyear
investigation within Mexico's Defense Ministry that it said showed close ties
between highranking officers and some of the nation's most notorious drug
lords.

In a statement late Sunday, the ministry said the officers mentioned in the
probe were no longer with the military. ``The ministry affirms that none of
the people mentioned have any function in the Mexican army,'' it said.

``Violation of the law under any circumstances will be denounced regardless
of rank or position,'' the ministry said.

It added that it had already charged 34 current and former military officials
this year with cooperating with drug traffickers.

Mexico's military has been ridden with scandal since the chief of the
nowabolished National Institute for Combating Drugs, Jesus Gutierrez
Rebollo, was jailed in February amid charges he had taken bribes from the
country's top drug kingpin.

The scandal reignited Saturday with an armed attack on a key informant whose
cooperation had helped lead to the arrest of Gutierrez. Ricardo Cesareo
Vazquez was shot as he left his house, but the Federal Attorney General's
Office said he was not badly injured.

Proceso cited evidence that it said linked two generals, two colonels and
three lieutenant colonels with the protection of and acceptance of gifts from
drug lords Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, known as ``Don Neto,'' and Rafael Caro
Quintero. Both men are now in jail on drugtrafficking and related charges.

Proceso said the allegations came to light after the arrest of two military
officials who had stolen the confidential investigation documents from the
office of Defense Minister Enrique Cervantes Aguirre.

The ministry did not comment on the specific accusations made against the
former military officials.

The documents were part of an investigation that began in 1991 and ended last
March, Proceso said. The magazine did not report the result of the
investigation or say how it had obtained the documents.

The reports also cited an offer from former top drug lord Amado Carillo to
stop selling drugs in Mexico in return for protection for himself and his
family. Proceso said Carillo did not offer to turn himself in and said he
would keep selling drugs outside Mexico.

Carillo died after liposuction and plastic surgery last month. Authorities
say he was killed by an overdose of a sleeping drug.

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