Mexico's national intelligence service said Wednesday it has suspended one of its agents pending an investigation into allegations that he was involved in the assassination of presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio.
The Center for Investigation and National Security - Mexico's equivalent of the Central Intelligence Agency - said that agent Jorge Antonio Sanchez Ortega, 32, was being investigated concerning his actions on the day Colosio was shot to death in Tijuana.Colosio, 44, was shot in the head and stomach at the end of a late afternoon campaign rally on March 23. As the candidate of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, he was widely favored to win the Aug. 21 elections and become Mexico's next president.
A 23-year-old mechanic, Mario Aburto Martinez, who was arrested at the scene, has confessed to shooting the candidate. Government special investigator Miguel Montes said Monday that Aburto and at least six other men, including members of Colosio's locally hired security detail, were suspected of plotting to kill the candidate.
Despite Montes' insistence that Colosio was shot twice with Abur-to's .38-caliber pistol, reports have persisted that he was wounded with two separate weapons.
The intelligence agent, Sanchez Ortega, was arrested near the scene by Tijuana municipal police minutes after Colosio was shot. Sanchez Ortega's shirt was covered with blood, and a paraffin test later showed he had fired a weapon. Nevertheless, the test was deemed inconclusive, and Sanchez Ortega was released that same day.
Quoting state police investigators in Tijuana, the Mexican news magazine Proceso reported Sunday that municipal police arrested Sanchez Ortega after seeing him run toward a car moments after Colosio was shot.
The Interior Ministry, to which the intelligence service belongs, said Wednesday that Sanchez Ortega said he was running to his car to report the shooting of Colosio he came across the candidate being carried to his own vehicle.
Sanchez Ortega, who was assigned to the intelligence agency's office in Tijuana, has said he bloodied his clothes while helping move Colosio to the ambulance that rushed him to the hospital.
"The (intelligence service) desires that the statements of Sanchez Ortega be investigated in depth and that the special prosecutor determine what the truth is," the Interior Ministry said.
Sanchez Ortega joined the intelligence service in October.