The brother-in-law of a former Mexican president has become the seventh person convicted in U.S. courts in the government's all-out effort to avenge the torture-slaying of drug agent Enrique Camarena.
Ruben Zuno Arce, 64, was convicted Monday of charges including conspiracy and kidnapping. He could get life in prison at his sentencing Feb. 8.Zuno was tried along with Dr. Humberto Alvarez Machain, a Mexican gynecologist who was kidnapped by bounty hunters paid by the U.S. government and was taken to the United States. Despite protests from Mexico, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the kidnapping legal.
The government had said Alvarez used his medical expertise to keep Camarena alive while he was tortured, but prosecutors offered little evidence to back that claim, and U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie last week cleared Alvarez of all charges.
Drug Enforcement Administration chief Robert Bonner said Monday the investigation of Camarena's slaying will continue. "If there are any further individuals indicted we would expect to work cooperatively with the Mexican government," he said.
Seven people have been convicted in the United States and about two dozen in Mexico in connection with the 1985 slaying.
Zuno, a brother-in-law of former Mexican President Luis Echeverria, was also convicted in 1990, but the verdict was overturned when Rafeedie said the government misled him about evidence.
The bodies of Camarena and a DEA-employed pilot were found in a field in Mexico. Prosecutors theorized Camarena was punished for DEA raids on marijuana plantations that resulted in the destruction of $5 billion worth of the drug.
Prosecutors accused Zuno of membership in a Guadalajara drug cartel and said he helped plan Camarena's kidnapping in meetings with high-ranking Mexican government officials.