The former head of Mexican secret police, arrested two days ago in connection with the slaying of a popular journalist, will be charged only with obstructing justice and related crimes, authorities said Thursday.
The Mexico City Attorney General's office indicated it was unable to file homicide charges against Jose Antonio Zorrilla Perez because the suspect had destroyed documents needed to prove its case.Mexican authorities earlier had said Zorrilla was the "intellectual author" of the slaying of journalist Manuel Buendia, who was shot point-blank in a parking lot next to his office in Mexico City on May 30, 1984.
Zorrilla, former chief of the Federal Security Directorate, a now-defunct police agency in charge of political intelligence, was arrested Tuesday evening in the capital after a brief shootout with police.
Zorrilla, at his arraignment Thursday, denied involvement in the slaying and also rejected allegations he has close ties with a Mexican drug kingpin.
"I am innocent," Zorrilla told a federal judge. "I am victim of the judicial error." Zorrilla said he had been a friend of Buendia.
Prior to the arraignment, Marco Antonio Diaz de Leon, director of the department's legal trial department, told reporters police have "voluminous" documents to prove Zorrilla's involvement in the Buendia slaying.