KIDNAPPED MEXICAN POLITICIAN IS FREED

MEXICO CITY-Diego Fernandez de Cevallos, the former presidential
candidate kidnapped from his ranch in May, turned up at his Mexico
City home on Monday, ending a seven-month ordeal that captivated
Mexicans and highlighted the weakness of the country's law-enforcement
institutions.

The 69-year-old politician appeared before reporters in front of his
house, looking gaunt and sporting a bushy beard. Mr. Fernandez's
release comes days before Christmas. "As far as my kidnappers, as a
man of faith, I have already forgiven," said Mr. Fernandez, who
declined to discuss details of his captivity but said he would soon
publish information about his ordeal.

The abduction, one of the country's biggest mysteries over the past
months, seems to have been the work of a shadowy left-wing guerrilla
group, which claimed responsibility for the kidnapping over the
weekend and said the politician would be released.

Nicknamed "El Jefe Diego" or "Diego the Boss," Mr. Fernandez is best
known for his surprisingly strong showing in the 1994 presidential
election, which he narrowly lost to Ernesto Zedillo.

Known for his hard-charging demeanor and penchant for cigars, he has
kept an outsize political profile ever since, and is one of the most
prominent and controversial figures in President Felipe Calderon's
conservative National Action Party.

On May 14, Mr. Fernandez arrived at his ranch in the central state of
Queretaro, where his attackers waited, authorities said. Bloodstains
were found beside his sport-utility vehicle when investigators arrived
at the scene.

Mr. Fernandez's disappearance was a shock even in Mexico, where
kidnapping is rife and tens of thousands have been killed in conflicts
involving drug traffickers. The saga underscored that even the
country's richest and most powerful are vulnerable to organized crime,
be it traffickers or leftist guerrillas.

It also raised questions about the efficacy of Mexico's institutions.
At the request of Mr. Fernandez's family, Mexico's Attorney General's
Office stopped investigating the crime only days after his
abduction-presumably to allow the family to negotiate a ransom.

Many critics, including some legal scholars, said the government was
wrong to back down from a criminal investigation on behalf of a
powerful family. The move also flew in the face of public statements
by government officials urging citizens not to negotiate with kidnappers.

Many kidnappings in Mexico go unreported because citizens don't trust
the authorities to do a competent job in finding the culprits, or
suspect that police themselves may be involved. The Fernandez case
seemed to reinforce that lack of trust in the authorities.

A spokeswoman from the Attorney General's Office said on Monday that
with Mr. Fernandez's safe return, the investigation would begin again.

On Sunday, a day before Mr. Fernandez turned up, a Mexican newspaper
published a lengthy manifesto written by a group calling itself
"Network for Social Transformation" in which the authors claimed
responsibility for the kidnapping.

The piece, titled "Epilogue of a Disappearance," described the
lawmaker as a plutocrat who had abused his position at the expense of
Mexico's poor.

The kidnapping appears to be the work of a cell of the Popular
Revolutionary Army, the guerrilla group known as the EPR, according to
Raul Benitez, a security expert at the National Autonomous University
of Mexico.

The EPR has a history of kidnapping Mexican elites, including the 1994
abduction of Alfredo Harp Helu, then the co-owner of Mexico's largest
bank, Banamex. Mr. Harp was freed unharmed after four months and after
his family paid a $25 million ransom, according to a ledger found in a
police raid.

The EPR has denied that it kidnapped Mr. Fernandez. But Mr. Benitez
said the abduction bore hallmarks of the group, which has also
suffered several splits over the past few years.

[sidebar]

Mexico's Drug Killings

Nearly 23,000 people have died in drug-related violence since 2006,
according to the government, with northern border states experiencing
the worst of the violence.