Witness Links Now-DEA Operative to Talk of Camarena Killing

A government-paid informant testified Friday in Los Angeles federal court that a man who later became a Drug Enforcement Administration operative participated in a December, 1984, meeting at which drug lords discussed killing DEA agent Enrique Camarena.

The witness, Enrique Placencia Aguilar, said that Antonio Garate Bustamante met with about a dozen men at the Guadalajara home of one of Mexico’s major drug lords.

Garate has played a major role in arranging for several individuals to become prosecution witnesses for the Camarena murder trial.

Placencia said that he worked under Garate on the Guadalajara police SWAT team during 1981 and subsequently was employed by Garate as a driver.

Placencia testified that Camarena’s photo was passed around during the December, 1984, meeting at the home of drug lord Ernesto Fonseca Carillo. He said this was the first meeting where drug traffickers discussed the idea of killing Camarena, contradicting another prosecution witness who said that the first such meeting was held two months earlier. Camarena was killed in February, 1985.

DEA officials said they had no immediate comment on Placencia’s statements about Garate.

Defense lawyer Martin R. Stolar said that “Garate should have been indicted, but instead he turned himself into a witness factory and produced a bunch of bought witnesses.”

Garate earlier this year testified that he had been the architect of a controversial DEA-inspired kidnaping of Dr. Humberto Alvarez Machain, a Guadalajara gynecologist indicted for his alleged role in Camarena’s murder.

U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie is considering whether to keep Alvarez in custody and put him on trial later this year or return him to Mexico, where he faces charges in the Camarena murder.

Placencia had testified earlier in the trial about the December, 1984, meeting. But he was not asked whether Garate or anyone else discussed kidnaping or killing Camarena. On Friday, he was asked if they discussed kidnaping Camarena. He responded: “They discussed killing him.”

He was asked later if Garate had participated in the discussion. He responded that he had. Garate, a DEA operative since 1986, has been living in Los Angeles in recent years.