Mexico Takes Protest of Kidnaping to U.S. Court

In a highly unusual diplomatic move, the government of Mexico on Tuesday took its protests over the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration-orchestrated kidnaping of a Mexican suspect in the Enrique Camarena murder case directly to U.S. courts.

Jose Angel Pescador Osuna, consul general of Mexico in Los Angeles, submitted a four-page letter to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals protesting the abduction in April of Dr. Humberto Alvarez Machain, who is accused by U.S. authorities of administering drugs to DEA agent Camarena during his torture-murder by Mexican drug lords in 1985.

The letter was submitted to the appeals panel in support of a dramatic ruling on Aug. 10 by U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie in which he said he had no jurisdiction to try Alvarez because “the United States violated its extradition treaty with Mexico when it unilaterally abducted” Alvarez from Mexico.

The U.S. attorney is appealing Rafeedie’s decision. Alvarez, a Guadalajara gynecologist who was indicted by a federal grand jury on five felony charges stemming from the murder, remains in jail here pending the outcome of the appeal.

Speaking for the government of Mexico, Fernando Viveros Castaneda, deputy consul general for special programs in Los Angeles, said the Mexican government filed the letter at the request of Alvarez’s attorneys.

Alvarez was kidnaped in Guadalajara on April 2 by a group of Mexican men with close ties to a Los Angeles DEA operative named Antonio Garate Bustamante. Garate had worked under the supervision of Hector Berrellez, the DEA agent who heads the Camarena investigation in Los Angeles.

Garate and Berrellez testified that the kidnapers had been paid about $60,000 for the abduction. They also said the operation had been approved in Washington in advance--a contention denied by a source in the U.S. attorney general’s office.

Viveros said the Mexican government has filed two formal letters of protest through diplomatic channels since Alvarez was abducted and have received no response. “We are filing this letter because we want to confront a situation that is outside the law--such as the kidnaping of Dr. Alvarez--with a reaction that is based on law,” Viveros said.

He said he could think of no other case in California in which the Mexican government had filed such a document within the U.S. court system.

Assistant U.S. Atty. William F. Fahey, who is handling the government’s appeal, said: “We’re carefully studying the letter to determine whether a response is appropriate, and if so, whether it will be responded to as a part of our briefing schedule, or in some other fashion.”

The Mexican government asserts in the letter that if Alvarez is allowed to stand trial, “some United States authorities would find it easier” to abduct more suspects out of Mexico instead of abiding by the existing extradition treaty.

Under the 1963 treaty, either nation has the right to request extradition of people from the other country.