MEXICAN KINGPIN CHARGES DISMISSED

TOLUCA, Mexico (AP) - A judge dismissed charges that the accused head
of Mexico's largest drug smuggling gang had a hand in the 1993
killing of a Roman Catholic cardinal.

Judge Leopaldo Ceron said late Thursday that prosecutors failed to
provide sufficient evidence that Benjamin Arellano Felix was involved
in the slaying of Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo, who died in a
hail of gunfire at the airport in the western city of Guadalajara on
May 24, 1993.

In a court appearance Tuesday, Arellano Felix told one of Ceron's
assistants that he "had nothing to do with" Posadas Ocampo's death.

Arellano Felix's brother, Francisco Rafael, is in a maximum security
prison outside Mexico City, serving time for his role in Posadas
Ocampo's slaying. Prosecutors had alleged that the cardinal was
killed in the crossfire of a shootout between Benjamin and Francisco
Rafael Arellano Felix and members of a rival drug gang.

But Ceron said that while witnesses placed Francisco Rafael at the
scene of the shooting, no one came forward to say they had seen
Benjamin Arellano Felix at the airport at the time of the cardinal's
death.

Ceron also threw out several weapons charges and dismissed a charge
of cocaine possession against Arellano Felix. The judge ruled that
authorities did not obtain proper warrants before discovering weapons
and drugs in a string of homes that allegedly belonging to Arellano
Felix and his associates.

Prosecutors said that they would appeal Ceron's rulings. Arellano
Felix remained behind bars and still faces dozens of far more serious
drugs and organized crime charges.

Before his capture last month, police say Arellano Felix ran the
day-to-day operations of a drug smuggling syndicate that bore his
family's name and helped move tons of cocaine and marijuana through
the border city of Tijuana and into the western United States.