The accuser has become the accused in Mexico's most spectacular murder case.
Mario Ruiz Massieu, who as a federal prosecutor claimed a high-level cover-up in his brother's murder, was charged Monday with trying to divert attention from the true mastermind: the brother of then-President Carlos Salinas de Gortari.And the attorney general's office said it has learned from U.S. Customs officials that $6.9 million was deposited in a Houston bank under Ruiz Massieu's name.
The money supposedly arrived between March and November 1994 - a period when Mario Ruiz Massieu headed anti-narcotics prosecutions in Mexico as well as the probe of the September murder of his brother, the second-highest official in Mexico's governing party.
These were the latest shocking twists to a case that has shaken Mexico's political establishment, already battered by the country's economic crisis.
Ruiz Massieu appeared in a Newark, N.J., federal court on Monday to answer charges of failing to declare more than $43,000 in cash to customs officials. U.S. officials also asked he be held for extradition to Mexico.
A bail hearing was scheduled for March 14 in Newark.
The Mexican attorney general's office said Monday that a judge had issued an arrest warrant for the former prosecutor, a necessary step for extradition. It said a formal extradition request would be made within 60 days.
As the court met in New Jersey, another judge in Mexico ended a six-day arraignment of Raul Salinas de Gortari and ordered him held for trial on charges of plotting the murder of Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, Mario's brother.