http://www2.eluniversal.com.mx/pls/impr ... abla=miami

Family still waiting for gov't apology

El Universal
Martes 12 de julio de 2005
Nuestro mundo, página 1


The case of an architect suspected to be a fugitive drug lord has embarrassed the Fox administration, say analysts, perhaps leaving it reluctant to acknowledge the snafu.


Never mind.
That was the government's message to a Mexico City architect who was held for a week and accused of being reputed Juárez cartel boss Vicente Carrillo Fuentes.

On Monday, the family of JoaquÃÂ*n Romero Aparicio was still waiting for a promised government apology in the wake of the tortuous case of mistaken identity.

President Vicente Fox's spokesman, Rubén Aguilar, had said there would be an apology if the detained man was not, in fact, one of Mexico's most wanted drug traffickers. But Aguilar began a two-week vacation this week.

Romero Aparicio was quietly released from a Mexico City detention center Sunday after DNA evidence showed there was no relation to the Carrillo Fuentes family, the Attorney General's Office (PGR) said in a statement that did not mention the architect by name.

Police arrested Romero Aparicio on July 2 in a Mexico City shopping mall. Two days later, Aguilar said at his regular news briefing that it was likely the detained man was in fact the reputed drug trafficker. But media outlets and analysts were skeptical.

Mexico's drug lords have to fear both the police and rival gangs, and it is highly unlikely that any of them would be strolling down a Mexico City mall with no protection and no attempt to disguise themselves, analysts said.

Furthermore, members of Romero Aparicio's family quickly offered photographs, medical records, DNA samples and testimonies to prove his identity. The Televisa TV network reported on the night of July 4 that the architect's DNA did not match that of the Carrillo Fuentes family.

Still, authorities held Romero Aparicio. An informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said that the detained man was undoubtedly Carrillo Fuentes, according to the PGR.

Analysts consulted by the Spanish news service EFE said the mishandling of the case came at a bad time for the Fox administration.

"I think this was a fiasco for the government, and it acted with great irresponsibility in portraying an architect as the head of a drug-trafficking group," said José Reveles, an expert on drug trafficking.

Authorities announced the arrest of "Vicente Carrillo Fuentes" on July 4 to "try to deflect attention from the political failure of the meeting staged by President Fox two days earlier" to mark the 5th anniversary of his victory at the polls, Reveles said.

Gabriel Gutiérrez, a political science professor, said the Fox administration "has committed a monumental mistake and shown, once again, that the agencies in charge of fighting crime are striking out blindly."

Members of Romero Aparicio's family said he had been treated well during his detention and may describe his ordeal to the media in the near future.