Approved For Release 2003/09/09: CIA-RDP96-00 788 ROO 1900750004-7 Tr fD By William A. Orme Jr.. Special to The Wasbington 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 in Ien 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,4,' mMe ts ren.W repor were awaited on cause of death. Lg Ad- [In Washington, DEA Actin ministratar Jack Lawn Said the bod- @ies "had been subjected to physical violence," with broken bones but no bullet wounds. Details on A16.1 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 marij6ana traf- fickers near San Fernando, about 70 miles south of Mexico's eastern border with Texas. Although the discovery repre- XjC0, sents "the first real bre the case," apparent dis =re=I] of e the officially reported raid that led to the recovery of the corpses have caused "confusion" regarding, the kidnapers' presumed motives and identities, U.S. souroes, said. "There are a lot of inc*s_ tencies, a lot of holes in the sta@," said one. Discovered near the. city of mora in the state of Michoacan, thq, badly decomposed bodies Weret, transported for autopsies Guadalajara, capital of neig borin Jalisco,state. Camarena and avala See MEXICO@ A16, Col. I Approved For Release 2003/09/09 CIA-RDP96-00788ROO1900750004-7 Approved For Release 2003/09/09: CIA-RDP96-00 788 ROO 1900750004-7 UNITED STATES U )EA, ent s Body Fou d Mek'ican f8ite Shoot-Out of Wcoj@pm Al Mexican 'governt fient pilot who ad flown missions for the DEA ere', had been kidnaped"Feb. 7 in eparate incidents in different parts While the location of the bodies pparently was' re@@aled by an nonymbus Mexican police infor- Afie' :$50,000 U.S. govern- i6l6rd "'Offiains unclaimed, The corps'e's'- - Vefie reportedly found at 4 a' in. in plastic bags on roperty befifM-th&liorneof Man- Bfav6- Cervantes, who was I o0o@ 8'a,turd'itwith his wife and t6 so@s@ @'-a`cofl` ronta t@ .1 iff tion with exican p6flc6.--A 'former Micho- a it 8 i -a t@c" n, S , 10,10man, Bravo Cer- 94A @% by Mexican federal ffiqials to be involved in drug- h ft afid highway as- unn,itig, car t e aults- in the Michoacan-Jalisco re ion. "ThR were not major drug traf- kerg oiii'informed U.S. source id. - :@' - '" ., According to police reports, all ur hiefribers of the Bravo family sponded to sdii6nder demands tn rifle fire, prompting a pro- on 6'd'6kcfian_g6 -in- -iihich one fed- agent died after bullets from an R15 semia@f6miitic rifle. Whea Poli burst'into the fam- @ce @Iy's modest 'cein-ent-block home, Bravo Cervantes' wife, wounded on the floor fireCa' fi-dridgun at the agent , w 0, Yot 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 goyernor of Michoacan, who complained in a inessage y6terday 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 titte, 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 MEXICO Ta 0 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 Mls. 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 a Cl Br vo an were not among those suspected of involvement in the kid-1 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 involved7 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-RDP96-00788 ROO 1900750004-7 Approved For Release 2003/09/09 : CIA-RDP96-00788ROO1900750004-7 DEA Cites Data Ina .tog Agent Beaten Not Shot By Loretta Tofani Washinjim Nst Staff Writer the bodies 'found yesterday" in Mcxic6, apparently including that of a missing Drug Enforcement Ad- ministration, agent, "had been'sub- jected to physical violence," Acting DEA Aoministrator Jack Lawn said last night. Lawn quoted a medical examiner in Me;dco as saying the two 11 haId broken.bones and one had.aSash aeross' his head' that could have ,been the cause of death. No bullet wounds were reported,, Lawn said'at a press conference. The bodies tho4ght to be those of Eniique Camarena Salazar and"a P, ;I, exican pilot were wrapped in plas-, tir, and "dumped on a roadside," he tsaid. The pilot had flown missions Jor DEA.. :The.bodies, which we're 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 actingon a tip, Lawn said. Lawn said he is in $dregular 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 Cama'rena 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-RDP96-00788ROO1900750004-7 U, THURSDAY MARCH 7,198.5 ....fears THURSDAY _MARCH7__1_q85 ,,,gerit'dead in MexiiQo kinapped U.S. agent fear6d dead in Mexico Tentative ID 7' m ade of decomposect body IjI J ,gmes City of The Sun -MEXICIO CITY -'The body of a kidnapped Affierican'drig 'agent has apparently been found at a Mexican ranch, U.S. officials here said yester- day@m` bassador John Gavin said a identift6ti-o'n"' left, preliminary only flimsy hope" that "a frail and Udly decdmposed body was not that of Enrique Camarend'Salazar, a 87-jear-old veteran drII19-46rit.- Mr. was kidnapped February 7 by four armed men outside the U.S. Consulate in Guadalajara. An6iher' body recovered at El Mareno, a ranch 90 miles southeast wa _lY of, Guadalajara, s tentative idenfifie4 as fhat of Alfredo Zavala Avelar, a Mexican pilot involved in th,e 'joint U.S,:-Mexican drug eradica- tiIon program who was kidnapped the i00 diy as 'Mr. Camarena in Guadlbjara. P, Mareno was the site of a shoot- L o4f oij Sifurday* that left five per- oft dead after Mexican police raid- ed th,e ran@ch looking for 'the drug aIgent andthe pilot. No trace of the I . , 'as reported, however, he bodies, which had been dead et least f6 a s, w'erebadly -debom- d And e Orelimfinar y identi- cation of amarena was made - - l.., -.- i., 0ii, ii from c,,9t,, 1%. in 11d. U. S. offiCia were, h- - - ' when 1 11 ', presen , e said, t4he 'es were examined at a hospi- ta b6iut'20'nilbs e st of amora,"a" tranch..-,. iles were to bW flown to I' I sitive a ara ast ni,%1h for po i'e,nica 16n'-`--bas-e - --on' -dental ords and 6416@16r-e,`niic .ffia, tori- d1s,the.amba;i'a'rWga'iT_- Mr. GavW'M,td there were "con- f h w'and lictin reports concerning 0 lie bodies were found. tbld Z-L- - tha a search for,the''kian-ap6e men had been: aband6ied_1f_Te__f@ri6h Tuesdiiy night, buffhat "Vory@@&rly in the moiiing they told us the bod- 16 had beeA found." A U.S. Emb9A1YdVAWPbH& See NXXICO, 4A, Col. 5 MEIWO, 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 ASSOCIATED PRESS' anonymous tip that the two men Kidhapped agent Enrique Ca- were being held there, Mr. Gavin marena Salazar is believed dead. , said. A Mexican police agent was among those killed in the shootout. Sepulveda and Secretary of State No evidence of drug trafficking George P. Shultz in Washington. was found at the ranch, but "we still A shootout yesterday morning at believe major drug traffickers wore a highway checkpoint in northern involved in the kidnapping,"said Lee Mexico left five police officers dead. Johnson, an embassy spokesman. They were reportedly machine- Mr. Gavin said the United States gunned by drug traffickers protect- was receiving "good cooperation ing a truckload of marijuana. from the Mexican authorities at this Mr. Gavin called the drug fight time. an "ongoing war" and said,"There is U.S. accusations last month that a very real possibility that our own corrupt Mexican officials were stall- agents may once again suffer these ing the Camarena investigation put kinds of attacks." severe strains on U.S.-Mexican rela- The United States closed nine re- tions. mote crossings on the Mexican bor- The U.S. mounted Operation In- der last weekend because of threats tercept, a 10-day, program of ex- on American officials. haustive car-by-car searches that nearly paralyzed commerce and tourism along the 1,700-mile border, Afitterand Seeks to raise to catch Mexican officials' attention. Fyench. speakers'prorile Only a February 22 telephone call from Mexican President Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado to President President Francois Mitterrand Reagan, protesting Operation Inter- yesterday launched a crusade to ex- cept, began to restore normalcy to pand the influence of the French- U.S.-Mexican relations. U.S. officials speaking world in the face of a grow- said they believed the border opera- ing Anglo-Saxon onslaught. tion helped inject vigor into the Ca- Mr. Mitterrand, who speaks no marena investigation. foreign language, hosted the first The episode's effect on the coun- meeting_ of the Francophone High 20001WAQ9iti6iAelRIDRINsM6gHiOOt9QMi)%Mp7of 28 French-speak- of a meeting next week between ing writers, political figures and art- Mexican Foreign Minister Bernardo ists.