Salvadoran Death-Squad Suspect Posts Bail in L.A.

Carlos Rene Mata, a Salvadoran businessman named by Los Angeles police as a suspect in “death squad” threats against Salvadoran refugees and Catholic priests in Southern California, posted bail and was scheduled to be released late Friday from Los Angeles County Jail, sheriff’s deputies said.

Los Angeles Municipal Judge Alban Niles lowered Mata’s bail earlier this week from $500,000 to $50,000 because, he said, prosecutors had failed to produce evidence linking Mata to death squads.

Mata, 36, is the owner of Pipil Express, an international courier service with more than 80 offices in the United States and Central America. An affidavit filed by Detective Steve Spear of the Los Angeles Police Department in Los Angeles Municipal Court last month named Mata as a suspect in the death-squad case.

Spear asserted in his affidavit that “confidential, reliable” sources have linked Mata to high-ranking members of the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance in El Salvador and to death squads operating in the Central American country.

Mata has not been formally charged in the death-squad case. He has been held in jail since Dec. 13 on charges of receiving stolen property and making a terrorist threat against a former employee. A preliminary hearing on the case is set for Jan. 25.

Niles lowered Mata’s bail at a hearing Wednesday at the request of defense attorney Donald C. Randolph.

“We have a person accused of being involved in political crimes based on a lot of hearsay,” the judge said, “none of which is apparently substantiated, at least enough to bring criminal charges against him.

“The (prosecution) conceded they had no evidence to present to the court of his involvement with death squads,” the judge continued. “If he’s a terrorist, where’s the evidence?”

Spear said after the hearing that police would not reveal the identities of the confidential informants “for their own safety. Their safety is more important to me than keeping Mata in detention.”

Despite his release Friday, Mata may soon be in custody again. He pleaded guilty in November in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles to charges that he used his firm to smuggle illegal aliens into the United States. He is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 31.

Mata and another Salvadoran employee of Pipil Express also have been ordered to stand trial in Los Angeles Superior Court in the alleged rape of a 24-year-old woman who was a former employee of the courier service.

Randolph, Mata’s attorney, has strongly denied that Mata is linked to any Salvadoran death squads, which allegedly have been operating in Los Angeles since 1987, issuing a series of threats and committing at least one abduction.

According to Randolph, Mata’s family has become the target of death threats since the case was reported last month.

“People have been calling his house, threatening his family and his children,” Randolph said after the hearing. Prowlers also have appeared at Mata’s home in Walnut to harass the family during early morning hours, Randolph said, knocking on the front door and then running away into the darkness.

A coalition of Salvadoran refugee groups called for a boycott of Pipil Express last month. Randolph said publicity surrounding the case has hurt Mata’s business.

“If the district attorney wants to ruin Carlos Mata and put him out of business, he is succeeding beyond his wildest dreams,” Randolph told Judge Niles.