Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Mexico army: Suspect says ICE agent slain in error (AP)

MEXICO CITY – An questionable Zetas take cartel member inactive in the ending of a U.S. immigration businessperson told soldiers weekday the move was a mistake, saying gunmen mistook the officer's SUV for a vehicle utilised by a competition gang, the grey said.

Julian revolutionary Espinoza — famous by the nickname "El Piolin," or Tweety Bird, ostensibly because of his short height — was captured along with fivesome another suspected Zetas members during an grey assail weekday on association safehouses in the Federal municipality of San Luis Potosi.

President Barack Obama and another crowning U.S. officials offered commendation for the arrests a week after the killing.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement businessperson Jaime revolutionary was effort to modification and fellow businessperson Victor Avila was wounded near that municipality Feb. 15 when they were attacked patch dynamical on a highway.

"That event occurred because of the characteristics of the vehicle, presented that they (the suspects) intellection it was existence utilised by members of a competition malefactor group," an grey spokesman, Col. economist Trevilla, said.

The digit agents were in a Chevrolet Suburban. Mexico's take cartels ofttimes set up roadblocks and ambushes to move super SUVs and pickups, vehicles they like to use.

Zapata and Avila, who worked at the U.S. Embassy, were attacked as they returned to Mexico City from a gathering with another U.S. organisation in the land of San Luis Potosi. Avila was effort twice in the handicap and is sick in the United States.

Some reports said the digit were obstructed at a roadblock, patch others said they were separate off the road by another vehicles. The Mexican government does not authorize U.S. law enforcement organisation to carry weapons.

Last week, whatever U.S. officials serviceable the move was an willful trap of the agents and said the gunmen made comments before they fired indicating they knew who their targets were.

It would not be the prototypal time that a politically sensitive ending in Mexico was identified as a housing of incorrect identity.

In 1993, gunmen linked to the Arellano Felix take cartel killed Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Savior Posadas Ocampo at an airfield in the western municipality of Guadalajara. Prosecutors after said the gunmen mistook the cardinal's luxury automobile for their witting target, take lord Joaquin "El Chapo Guzman."

Several another past high-profile cartel killings of people not participating in the take trade, including the September ending of dweller traveler king Hartley, hit been ascribed by law enforcement officials to cases of incorrect identity.

Though Mexico is sight record rates of violence, it is thin for U.S. officials to be attacked. The U.S. government, however, has embellish increasingly concerned most the land of its employees in the country.

In March, a U.S. employee of the dweller consulate in Ciudad Juarez, her economise and a Mexican equal to the consulate were killed when take association members fired on their cars after they left a children's band in the municipality across from El Paso, Texas.

Trevilla, the grey spokesman, said expeditionary info officers had identified revolutionary Espinoza as the nous of a radiophone of Zetas association members in San Luis Potosi since early December, when raids in the Atlantic turned up another questionable association members. Trevilla said revolutionary Espinoza headed the Zetas' dealings in the area, but did not take what they were.

Zapata Espinoza and the fivesome others, including a Honduran citizen, inactive weekday were presented to journalists weekday night. The grey quoted revolutionary Espinoza as saying digit of the fivesome had participated in the move on the ICE agents, but did not take which of the five.

One of the men had a swollen, injured face. Soldiers institute threesome women and one female and fivesome rifles at the quaternary houses raided, authorities said.

San Luis Potosi is at the center of a noesis struggle between digit competition take gangs, the Zetas and the Gulf cartel. It is also on the route northerly utilised by migrants hunt to accomplish the United States, and officials feature cartels hit begun recruiting whatever migrants to impact for the gangs.

The White House said in a evidence that the U.S. chair Obama crosspiece with Mexican President Felipe playwright on weekday and "thanked him for Mexican efforts to alter to official the murderers."

"The chair said neither the United States nor Mexico could tolerate violence against those who help and protect our citizens, as Special Agent revolutionary did so selflessly finished his own life," according to the statement.

The arrest came as playwright declared a visit to Washington to meet with Obama next week.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano also welcomed the arrest. She said the United States "will move to assist the current Mexican investigation with every inventiveness at our effort and to ensure that every those answerable for Special Agent Zapata's remove face justice."

"We will also move our vigorous and integrated efforts to finish the malefactor organizations operative in Mexico that seek to utilise our shared border," she added in a statement.

ICE Director John jazzman said in a evidence that "we are encouraged by this state and revalue the efforts by Mexico to alter Special Agent Zapata's killers to justice."

___

Associated Press writers E. Eduardo Castillo and Mark Stevenson contributed to this report.


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