From: nicanet@nyxfer.UUCP
Newsgroups: soc.culture.mexican
Subject: US v Machain Laughed Out of Court
Date: 21 Dec 92 22:22:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #N:qmB6VB5w165w@nyxfer.uucp:1012422126:000:3626
Nf-From: nyxfer.uucp!nicanet    Dec 21 14:22:00 1992


Subject: US v Machain Laughed Out of Court
From: nyxfer!nicanet (NicaNet NY)


Via The NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit

from...
         Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York
       339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499

            Weekly News Update #151, December 20, 1992


MEXICO: US VS. ALVAREZ MACHAIN LAUGHED OUT OF COURT

In uniquely embarrassing development for the US government, on
Dec. 14 in Los Angeles US District Judge Edward Rafeedie
dismissed as "suspicions and hunches," "whole cloth" and "the
wildest speculation" US prosecutors' case against Mexican
gynecologist Humberto Alvarez Machain. The US had charged that
Alvarez Machain assisted in the 1985 torture death of Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA) official Enrique "Kiki" Camarena
Salazar in Guadalajara. US officials paid Mexican police officers
to kidnap Alvarez Machain in April, 1990, and bring him to the
US, in defiance of US-Mexican extradition accords. When appeals
courts threw the case out, the government won a Supreme Court
decision last Jun 15 upholding the US's to kidnap foreign
nationals in violation of international laws. [New York Times
12/15/92; Washington Post 12/15/92]
 
But once Alvarez Machain went to trial on Dec. 2, it turned out
that the government didn't have a case. After two weeks the
prosecution team rested without establishing any of their
charges: that Alvarez Machain was present when the murder took
place, that he had used a syringe found at the murder site, or
that Alvarez or anybody else had injected Camarena with drugs to
keep him alive during the torture, since the autopsy found no
sign of drugs or of punctures. The witnesses against Alvarez
Machain were mostly convicted criminals who received a total of
$2.7 million for their testimony. [La Jornada (Mexico) 12/13/92]
Moreover, as Judge Rafeedie revealed on Dec. 16, a Mexican
informant told US investigators last September that Alvarez
Machain was the wrong man. Rafeedie scolded the prosecutors for
not sharing the information with the defense, as required by law.
[NYT 12/17/92; WP 12/17/92] Judge Rafeedie was appointed to the
federal bench by Ronald Reagan. [WP 12/17/92]
 
After his acquittal on Dec. 14, the US Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS) seized Alvarez Machain and held him
at the Los Angeles airport, claiming that he was an illegal
immigrant. He was finally put on a plane for Mexico just before
midnight without being allowed to see his lawyers. [NY Daily News
12/16/92 from AP; WP 12/16/92 from Reuter] Upon his arrival in
Mexico City, the doctor was interrogated by the Mexican attorney
general's office. Mexican investigators said they wouldn't bring
charges against Alvarez Machain in the Camarena case, but that
they would seek extradition of two DEA agents, Antonio Garate and
Hector Berrellez, in the doctor's kidnapping. [WP 12/16/92] The
Camarena trial is continuing for Alvarez Machain's codefendant,
Mexican businessman Ruben Zuno Arce. [NYT 12/15/92]


                               -30-

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