CIA-RDP96-00788R001900750004-7

Approved For Release 2003/09/09 : CIA-RDP96-00788R001900750004-7
Body of DEA Agent Is Found in Mexico
By William A. Orme Jr.
Special to The Washington Post
-
MEXICO CITY, March 6-The
bodies of kidnaped U.S. Drug En-
forcement Administration agent
Enrique Camarena Salazar and a
Mexican colleague were found this
morning near the rural home of a
family of accused narcotics traffick-
ers who died last weekend in a po-
lice shoot-out, Mexican and U.S.
officials announced.
Preliminary identification based
on clothing was made by U.S. and
Mexican authorities this afternoon
in Guadalajara, U.S. Ambassador
John Gavin reported. "There is a
high degree of certainty that it is
them," said Francisco Fonseca,
chief spokesman for Mexico's at-
torney general, adding that a formal
Mexican government statement on
the case might not be issued until
Thursday, "when all the facts are
known.'
' The two men apparently were
killed shortly after their abduction a
month ago, Mexican sources said.
Gavin said the two had been dead
"at least 15 days" and he knew of no
evidence to support reports that the:
bodies showed signs of torture. Fo-
rensic reports were awaited on
cause of death.
[In Washington, DEA Acting Ad-
ministrator Jack Lawn said the bod-
ies "had been subjected to physical
violence," with broken bones but no
bullet wounds. Details on A16.]
Calling the murders of Camarena
and Alfredo Zavala Avelar "losses in
an ongoing war," Gavin noted that
several. Mexican police were
killed-reportedly five-today in a
confrontation with marijuana traf-
fickers near San Fernando, about
70 miles south of Mexico's eastern
border with Texas.
Although the discovery repre-
sents "the first real breakthrough in
the case," apparent discrepancies in
the officially reported details of the
raid that led to the recovery of the
corpses have caused "confusion"
regarding the kidnapers' presumed
motives and identities, U.S. sources
said. "There are a lot of inconsis-
tencies, a lot of holes in the story,"
said one.
Discovered near the city of Za-
mora in the state of Michoacan, the
badly decomposed bodies were
transported
for
autopsies | tot
Guadalajara, capital of neighboring!
Jalisco state. Camarena and Zavala,
See MEXICO, A16, Col. 1
Approved For Release 2003/09/09 : CIA-RDP96-00788R001900750004-7

Approved For Release 2003/09/09 : CIA-RDP96-00788R001900750004-7
DEA Agent's Body Found
At Site of Mexican Shoot-Out
MEXICO, From Al
Mexican government pilot who
had flown missions for the DEA
there, had been kidnaped Feb. 7 in
Aseparate incidents in different parts
of Guadalajara.
While the location of the bodies
apparently was revealed by an
Panonymous Mexican police infor-
"mant, the $50,000 U.S. govern-
ment reward remains unclaimed,
Gavin said.
The corpses were reportedly
found at 4 a.m. in plastic bags on
property behind the home of Man-
"uel Bravo Cervantes, who was
killed on Saturday with his wife and
two sons in a confrontation with
Mexican police, A former Micho-
Vacan state congressman, Bravo Cer-
vantes was said by Mexican federal
Fofficials to be involved in drug-
running, car theft and highway as-
saults in the Michoacan-Jalisco re-
gion.
"They were not major drug traf-
fickers," one informed U.S. source
said.
According to police reports, all
four members of the Bravo family
responded to surrender demands
with rifle fire, prompting a pro-
longed exchange in which one fed-
eral judicial police agent died after
being hit with 17 bullets from an
AR15 semiautomatic rifle.
When police burst into the fam-
ily's modest cement-block home,
Bravo Cervantes' wife, wounded on
the floor, fired a handgun at the
agents, who shot back and killed
her, they later reported. Her hus-
band and sons already were dead,
they said.
The gunbattle, in which federal,
and Jalisco state police participated,
provoked an unusual protest from
the governor of Michoacan, who
complained in a message yesterday
to the governor of Jalisco and to
Federal Attorney General Sergio
Garcia Ramirez that his state's
"sovereignty" had been violated.
Michoacan state police learned of
the clash "only after the firefight
had begun" and were forcibly kept
at a distance by federal authorities
on the scene, Gov. Cuauhtemoc
Cardenas said.
Five suspects arrested at or near
the Bravo home Saturday were
brought to Guadalajara for ques-
tioning and released late Monday
evening. Among them were the
wives of the two Bravo sons who
died in the gunfight. The two wo-
men were detained, police reports
said, while driving a car stocked
with ammunition.
"If this is true, it seems odd that
they would simply be let go," a U.S.
source commented.
Some local officials and residents
questioned the official account of
the armed confrontation, with sev-
eral contending that the Bravos
were denied an opportunity to give
themselves up. "They were victim-
ized," said Octavio Ortiz, chief
spokesman for Michoacan's state
government. If the Bravos had been
arrested alive, Ortiz suggested to-
day in a telephone interview, "they
might also have been released like
the others were."
The Bravos lived in an unprepos-
sessing two-story home along the
main road in the small rural settle-
ment of La Angostura. Much of the
village turned out yesterday for the
funeral and burial of the Bravo fam-
ily, according to local press reports.
Mexican federal police reported
UNITED STATES
Gulf of
Mexico
MEXICO
San Fernando
Pacific
Guadalajara
Ocean
Zamora
Mexico
City
500
MILES
BY DAVE COOK -- THE WASHINGTON POST
the confiscation from the Bravo
home of two pounds of cocaine and
several high-powered weapons, in-
cluding two AR15s and three M1s.
For more than a year prior to his
kidnaping, Camarena was involved
in Operation Godfather, a joint ]
U.S .- Mexican investigation of Mex-
ican cocaine smuggling. DEA agent
Edward Heath, who runs the agen-
cy's Mexican program, was at the
Bravo home this morning to assist
in the identification of Camarena's
body, sources reported.
No DEA agent, however, wit-
nessed Saturday's gunfight, al-
though one arrived "after the dust
had cleared," the sources said. The
Bravo clan were not among those
suspected of involvement in the kid-
naping by DEA agents here, U.S.
sources said.
A former federal police agent
believed by DEA to have informa-
tion on Camarena's whereabouts
was released last week after a day
of questioning. "We are satisfied
that he was not involved" in the Ca-
marena abduction, a U.S. Embassy
spokesman said.
U.S. officials repeatedly have
urged Mexican law enforcement
officers to prosecute the leaders of
the "18 major gangs" of traffickers
that DEA says operate in Mexico.
Yesterday, Luis Octavio Porte Pet-
it, Mexico's deputy attorney gen-
eral, formally asked the U.S. Em -.
bassy here to provide "concrete
information" about key figures in
Mexico's narcotics trade.
Approved For Release 2003/09/09 : CIA-RDP96-00788R001900750004-7

Approved For Release 2003/09/09 : CIA-RDP96-00788R001900750004-7
DEA Cites Data
Indicating Agent
Beaten Not Shot
By Loretta Tofani
. Washington Post Staff Writer
The bodies found yesterday in
Mexico, apparently including that of
a missing Drug Enforcement Ad-
ministration agent, "had been sub-
jected to physical violence," Acting
DEA Administrator Jack Lawn said
last night.
Lawn quoted a medical examiner
in Mexico as saying the two had
broken bones and one had a gash
across his head that could have
been the cause of death.
No bullet wounds were reported,
Lawn said at a press conference.
The bodies thought to be those of
Enrique Camarena Salazar and a
"Mexican pilot were wrapped in plas-
tic and "dumped on a roadside," he
said. The pilot had flown missions
for DEA.
The bodies, which were decom-
posed, previously had been buried
at another location and exhumed,
according to a DEA source.
The bodies were discovered on a
roadside near Zamora by Mexican
federal police, who were acting on a
tip, Lawn said. Lawn said he is in
"regular contact" with the State
Department, Attorney General Ed-
win Meese and the White House
about the incident.
Camarena, 37, a Mexican-born
naturalized American with nearly
11 years' experience at the DEA,
was abducted Feb. 7 as he left his
Guadalajara office to have lunch
with his wife. An eyewitness told
DEA investigators that Camarena
was grabbed by four armed men
and thrown face down into a car.
The pilot was abducted the same
day in a different section of the city.
Approved For Release 2003/09/09 : CIA-RDP96-00788R001900750004-7

Approved For Release 2003/09/09A BDP96-00768R001900750004-7
MÃO
VOL. 296 NUMBER 94
U.S. fears
agent dead
in Mexico
Tentative ID made
of decomposed body
By James Bock
Mexico City Bureau of The Sun
MEXICO CITY - The body of a
kidnapped American drug agent has
apparently been found at a Mexican
ranch, U.S. officials here said yester-
day.
Ambassador John Gavin said a
"preliminary identification" left
only "a frail and flimsy hope" that
the badly decomposed body was not
that of Enrique Camarena Salazar, a
37-year-old veteran drug agent. Mr.
Camarena was kidnapped February
7 by four armed men outside the U.S.
Consulate in Guadalajara.
Another body recovered at El
Mareno, a ranch 90 miles southeast
of Guadalajara, was tentatively
identified as that of Alfredo Zavala
Avelar, a Mexican pilot involved in
-- the joint U.S .- Mexican drug eradica-
tion program who was kidnapped the
same day as Mr. Camarena in
Guadalajara.
El Mareno was the site of a shoot-
out on Saturday that left five per-
sons dead after Mexican police raid-
ed the ranch looking for the drug
agent and the pilot. No trace of the
missing men was reported, however,
until yesterday.
The bodies, which had been dead
at least 15 days, were badly decom-
posed and the preliminary identi-
fication of Mr. Camarena was made
from clothing, Mr. Gavin said. U.S.
officials were present, he said, when
the bodies were examined at a hospi-
tal in Zamora, about 20 miles east of
the ranch.
The bodies were to be flown to
Guadalajara last night for positive
identification based on dental
records and other forensic materi-
als, the ambassador said.
Mr. Gavin said there were "con-
flicting reports" concerning how and
when the bodies were found.
He said U.S. officials were told
that a search for the kidnapped men
had been abandoned at the ranch
Tuesday night, but that "very early
in the morning they told us the bod-
les had been found."
See MEXICO, 4A, Col. 5
SUN
THURSDAY MARCH 7, 1985
THURSDAY
MARCH 7. 1985
Kidnapped U.S. agent
feared dead in Mexico
MEXICO, from 1A
no American officials were present
when the bodies were discovered.
A.Red Cross volunteer in Zamora,
Jaime Arizaga, said in a phone inter-
view that he and three others were
called to the ranch at 5 a.m. yester-
day, but arrived to find the bodies in
plastic bags atop a patrol car and
the ranch sealed off by Mexican
Federal Judicial Police.
Mexican television reported that
the bodies were found buried in plas-
tic bags in a lemon grove, their
hands and feet tied, and that they
had been badly beaten. One report
said the two men had been tortured
and buried alive.
The Mexican Attorney General's
Office provided no immediate de-
tails.
The Saturday raid on the ranch
was launched after Mexican authori-
ties in Guadalajara received an
anonymous tip that the two men
were being held there, Mr. Gavin
said. A Mexican police agent was
among those killed in the shootout.
No evidence of drug trafficking
was found at the ranch, but "we still
believe major drug traffickers were
involved in the kidnapping,"said Lee
Johnson, an embassy spokesman.
Mr. Gavin said the United States
was receiving "good cooperation
from the Mexican authorities at this
time."
U.S. accusations last month that
corrupt Mexican officials were stall-
ing the Camarena investigation put
severe strains on U.S .- Mexican rela-
tions.
The U.S. mounted Operation In-
tercept, a 10-day, program of ex-
haustive car-by-car searches that
nearly paralyzed commerce and
tourism along the 1,700-mile border,
to catch Mexican officials' attention.
-
Only a February 22 telephone
call from Mexican President Miguel
de la Madrid Hurtado to President
Reagan, protesting Operation Inter-
cept, began to restore normalcy to
U.S .- Mexican relations. U.S. officials
said they believed the border opera-
tion helped inject vigor into the Ca-
marena investigation.
The episode's effect on the coun-
of a meeting next week between
Mexican Foreign Minister Bernardo
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kidnapped agent Enrique Ca-
marena Salazar is believed dead.
Sepulveda and Secretary of State
George P. Shultz in Washington.
A shootout yesterday morning at
a highway checkpoint in northern
Mexico left five police officers dead.
They were reportedly machine-
gunned by drug traffickers protect-
ing a truckload of marijuana.
Mr. Gavin called the drug fight
an "ongoing war" and said,"There is
a very real possibility that our own
agents may once again suffer these
kinds of attacks."
The United States closed nine re-
mote crossings on the Mexican bor-
der last weekend because of threats
on American officials.
Mitterand seeks to raise
French speakers' profile
....
President Francois Mitterrand
yesterday launched a crusade to ex-
pand the influence of the French-
speaking world in the face of a grow-
ing Anglo-Saxon onslaught.
Mr. Mitterrand, who speaks no
foreign language, hosted the first
meeting of the Francophone High
A U.S. Embassy snobetriof Release 2000/09/09ticosAeRDR96:00783R001900750904p7of 28 French-speak-
ing writers, political figures and art-
ists.