MEXICO
CITY (AP) — A senior U.S. official says there is strong circumstantial evidence
that Mexican federal police who fired on a U.S. Embassy vehicle,
wounding two CIA officers, were working for organized crime on a targeted
assassination attempt.
Meanwhile, a
Mexican official with knowledge of the case on the Aug. 24 ambush confirmed on
Tuesday that prosecutors are investigating whether the Beltran Leyva Cartel was
behind the attack.
The Mexican official
said that is among several lines of investigation into the shooting up of an
armored SUV that was clearly marked with diplomatic license plates on a rural
road near Cuernavaca south of Mexico City. Federal police, at times battered by
allegations of infiltration and corruption by drug cartels, have said the
shooting was a case of mistaken identity as officers were looking into the
kidnapping of a government employee in that area.
"That's
not a 'We're trying to shake down a couple people for a traffic violation sort
of operation. That's a 'We are specifically trying to kill the people in this
vehicle'," a U.S. official familiar with the investigation told The
Associated Press. "This is not a 'Whoops, we got the wrong people.' "
Photos of
the gray Toyota SUV, a model known to be used by Drug Enforcement
Administration agents and other U.S. Embassy employees working in Mexico,
showed it riddled with heavy gunfire. The U.S. Embassy called the attack an
"ambush."
When asked
by the AP if the Mexican federal police officers involved in the shooting were
tied to organized crime, the U.S. official said, "The circumstantial
evidence is pretty damn strong."
Both the
U.S. and Mexican officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the
sensitivity of the diplomatic issue.
The federal
police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The U.S.
State Department declined to discuss details.
"We
will not comment on an ongoing investigation," said William Ostick, a
spokesman. "This is a matter of great significance to both our countries
and we will continue to cooperate with Mexican authorities in their
investigation."
The Mexican
official said one line of investigation is that members of the Beltran Leyva
Cartel were interested in attacking the people in the car because some of their
lookouts had seen them passing through the area and presumed they were
investigating the cartel. It's possible they didn't know they were Americans.
The rural
road near Cuernavaca where the attack took place is known territory of the
remnants of the Beltran Leyva cartel, a once-powerful gang now run by Hector
Beltran Leyvan since the Navy killed his brother, drug lord Arturo Beltran
Leyva, in Cuernavaca in late 2009. Beltran Leyva was once aligned with Mexico's
powerful cartel, Sinaloa, headed by fugitive drug lord Joaquin "El
Chapo" Guzman. But the groups split in 2008 and continued government hits
on Beltran Leyva leadership since then have splintered that cartel into small
gangs warring for the area.
The CIA
officers were heading down a dirt road to the military installation with a
Mexican navy captain in the vehicle when a carload of gunmen opened fire and
gave chase. The embassy SUV tried to escape, but three other cars joined the
original vehicle in pursuing it down the road, according to the original navy
statement. Occupants of all four vehicles fired.
"This
is somebody with a powerful automatic weapon just unloading an entire clip,
reloading, and continuing to fire at that same impact point, clearly with the
intention of penetrating the armor and presumably killing those who are
inside," the U.S. official told the AP.
Surveillance
cameras in the area recorded two civilian vehicles chasing the U.S. Embassy
SUV, the Mexican official said. So far Mexican officials have said only federal
police fired on the SUV.
The two CIA
officers received non-life-threatening wounds and have returned to the United
States. The navy captain was uninjured and radioed the navy for help.
Twelve
officers have been detained in the case and are being held under a form of
house arrest pending possible charges, and 51 officers have testified in the
case.
A Mexican
federal police spokesman said last month that the officers may not have noticed
the diplomatic plates. The official said police focused on the unusual sight of
a bulletproof sport utility vehicle traveling at high speed on a rural road,
not on the car's distinctive diplomatic plates.
Raul
Benitez, a security expert at Mexico's National Autonomous University, said
Mexican military sources have told him that "the attack was not an
error," and "the objective was to annihilate the three passengers in
the car."
"The
same car with the same people had been going up and back (to the marine
training camp) for a week, so perhaps some lookout who worked for drug
traffickers informed the police, or the Beltrans" about the vehicle,
Benitez said.
He said the
federal police must have known that they were attacking a diplomatic vehicle.
"I
don't think we're yet in a position to say definitively who did it, who paid
them and why they did it," the U.S. official said. "We have been
assured repeatedly in private and in public that the government of Mexico will
investigate this to the end and provide a final answer as to what occurred, and
I think our posture at this stage is we take them at their word."
Mexico's
federal police agency, which President Felipe Calderon calls the most
professional and highly trained of the country's law enforcement, has been hit
with allegations of wrongdoing in recent months. In August, all 348 officers
assigned to security details at the Mexico City International Airport were
replaced in the wake of a June shooting of three federal policemen, who were
killed by a fellow officer believed to be involved in trafficking drugs through
the terminal.
Ten federal
police officers were arrested in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez in
2011, accused of running an extortion ring.
______
Associated
Press writers Mark Stevenson in Mexico City and Elliot Spagat in San Diego
contributed to this report.
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