An assistant state prosecutor in Mexico was detained for questioning in an investigation into the killing of an opposition politician and four others, and the passing of information to drug traffickers. In the border city of Nuevo Laredo, gunmen wielding assault rifles attacked a vehicle carrying a federal Congressman, wounding him and killing his driver just a day after the government announced a crackdown on drug crime in the area.The detention of prosecutor Hugo Resendiz Martinez, who was immediately fired from his post in the northern state of Durango and taken to Mexico City, was a rare public acknowledgment of the degree to which drug corruption has penetrated law enforcement. "Investigations have revealed that during his term in office, the former assistant prosecutor passed on information about criminal investigations to (Sergio) Villarreal," a drug trafficker known as "El Grande," or "The Big One," the federal Attorney General's Office said in a statement Monday.
Resendiz Martinez's detention marks one of the highest-profile corruption cases since the 1997 arrest of Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, once Mexico's top anti-drug official, who was found to have been paid by the now-deceased cocaine kingpin Amado Carrillo Fuentes. Gutierrez Rebollo is serving a 71-year sentence for drug trafficking and racketeering.
Resendiz Martinez was detained on suspicion of participating in organized crime and drug trafficking. He is accused of tipping off drug traffickers about raids in return for money, and engaging in extreme acts of brutality. Prosecutors said an investigation into Resendiz Martinez revealed a gun that may have been used in the Jan. 14 killing of opposition politician Jaime Meraz Martinez. Meraz Martinez's wife, son and an employee of the opposition were also killed in the attack.
Tests were being done on the weapon to determine if it was used in any of the killings. Meraz Martinez, 63, was a former lawmaker and adviser to the left-leaning opposition Democratic Revolution Party and ran a business. The investigations also turned up a clandestine burial site in Ciudad Lerdo in Durango, 490 miles north of Mexico City, where the bodies of a missing federal investigative agent, two pilots, and a businessman from the nearby state of Nuevo Leon were discovered.