Thread: Mexico security minister dead in helicopter crash

I wonder if sabatoge is a factor since this Mexico.


http://abcnews.go.com/International/wir ... id=1147414

Mexico security minister dead in helicopter crash


Sep 21, 2005 â€â€

www.swissinfo.org


September 22, 2005 2:05 AM

Wreckage of Mexico minister's helicopter found

By Eduardo Quiros

HUIXQUILUCAN, Mexico (Reuters) - A key figure in Mexican President Vicente Fox's war against drug cartels was missing on Wednesday after his helicopter went down in fog, and media said rescue workers had found the burning wreckage.

Fox was due to make a statement at 7 p.m. (1 a.m. British time) on the helicopter carrying Public Security Minister Ramon Martin Huerta and eight others.

The Bell 412 chopper lost contact 10 minutes after taking off from a military base in the capital on the way to the La Palma high security prison that holds several of Mexico's most feared drug capos.

Dozens of troops searched a wooded hill in banks of cloud outside Mexico City. Televisa network and other Mexican media said the destroyed aircraft was sighted in a mountainous area.

"A burnt helicopter was found," Televisa said. "It was located just before 6 in the afternoon," the station said.

It was not immediately clear if there were any survivors.

"All we know is that contact was lost. We don't know whether it was an emergency landing or a crash," government spokesman Ruben Aguilar told reporters earlier.

DRUGS FIGHT

Martin Huerta, a former governor of the central state of Guanajuato and a close friend of the president, is a top figure in a battle launched this year on drug-related crime on the U.S. border and western Mexico, where violence has spiralled.

More than 1,000 people have been killed this year as drug gangs fight over lucrative smuggling routes to the United States.

Tomas Valencia, the head of the Federal Preventive Police, one of Mexico's federal police forces, was also in the helicopter. The officials were headed for a ceremony at the La Palma prison.

An inspector from the National Human Rights Commission, a state-run watchdog, was believed to be among those missing. He had received at least three death threats from Osiel Cardenas, the jailed head of the infamous Gulf Cartel drug gang.

"They intensified or were repeated in recent days," a commission spokesman told Reuters, referring to the threats.

The office of the inspector, Jose Antonio Bernal, had rejected a complaint by Cardenas of rights abuses, the spokesman said.

www.boonvilledailynews.com

Fox: Mexican Minister Dies in Copter Crash

By MORGAN LEE



MEXICO CITY - A helicopter carrying a Cabinet minister who plays a top role in Mexico's anti-drug fight crashed in cloud-shrouded mountains outside Mexico City on Wednesday, killing him and all eight others on board.

The burned wreckage of the Bell helicopter was found in a mountainous, wooded area about 20 miles outside Mexico City several hours after it was reported missing.

The aircraft was carrying Public Safety Secretary Ramon Martin Huerta _ a trusted ally of President Vicente Fox whose ministry heads the federal police force _ Federal Preventive Police Chief Tomas Valencia, five other passengers and a crew of two.

It had taken off from a military base in Mexico City and was headed to a ceremony at the maximum-security La Palma prison, 35 miles west of Mexico City, when it was crashed in mountains surrounded by dense clouds.


"They all died in the line of duty," Fox said in a televised address, his voice cracking with emotion. "They are heroes ... I have lost not just a co-worker, but a close friend, Ramon."

Fox offered no explanation of why the helicopter crashed. But Mario Martinez, a pilot who was following in another helicopter, told local media that Huerta's craft had disappeared into a dense bank of clouds and was lost to view.

Mexican media had speculated as to whether the helicopter's disappearance was related to Mexico's powerful drug trafficking groups.

"We are probably looking at an accident," Interior Secretary Carlos Abascal told reporters before the helicopters wreckage was discovered.

The flight was on its way to a swearing-in ceremony for prison guards, the culmination of an effort to purge corrupt officials from a prison holding notorious Mexican drug gang leaders.

The prison was cordoned off earlier this year by federal troops after investigators found evidence that reputed drug lords Osiel Cardenas and Benjamin Arellano Felix had joined forces and were operating their networks from behind bars.

In addition to Huerta, the Bell helicopter carried a pilot, co-pilot, Valencia, officials from the Public Safety Department and one official from the country's National Human Rights Commission.

Fox created the Public Safety Department after taking office in 2000, combining federal police forces overseeing prisons, highways and borders _ including the Federal Preventative Police, a force that includes soldiers assigned to police work like crowd and riot control.

His role in charge of police overseeing Mexico's borders gave him a key role in fighting the nation's powerful drug trafficking gangs.

A trusted Fox ally, Huerta was appointed to lead the agency in August 2004 after the previous secretary, Alejandro Gertz Manero, resigned to return to private life.

Valencia had been promoted to his police chief post, answering to Huerta, in January after his predecessor was fired for his role in the botched response to an attack by a mob in Mexico City that left two federal agents dead.

Huerta was Fox's campaign director when Fox ran for governor of the central Mexican state of Guanajuato, and served as interior secretary after Fox's election in 1995. When Fox became president, Huerta took over as interim governor of Guanajuato.

Huerta, who has a degree in business administration, worked as a college professor and was an activist in Fox's conservative National Action Party before he launched his government career.

"For me, it is of great concern when any person has been in an accident, or is injured, or killed, but in this case in particular, the friendship that bonds me with Ramon for a long time makes this an extra-personal worry," said Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez, who spoke with reporters during an event with a visiting Russian official.

If you ask me, VERY suspicious.

The Mexican authorities, if you can believe them, are insisting the crash was caused by poor visibility in the area. They claim the helicopter flew directly into the side of a mountain.

http://www.usatoday.com

Mexican minister dies in helicopter crash
MEXICO CITY (AP) â€â€

www.tuscaloosanews.com

Article published Sep 26, 2005
Mexican Official in Crash Said Threatened

By LISA J. ADAMS
Associated Press Writer

A Mexican Cabinet minister who died last week in a helicopter crash had received death threats, President Vicente Fox's spokesman said Monday.

Mexican Public Safety Secretary Ramon Martin Huerta received threats "as there have been for many other public officials," Fox's spokesman, Ruben Aguilar in response to a question at a news conference Monday.

Aguilar said he did not know when Martin Huerta had last received a death threat, or from whom. Meanwhile, the late secretary's agency, the Public Safety Department, issued a news release insisting he had never received death threats.

One reported threat from a well-known drug boss was investigated and found to be baseless, it said.

Martin Huerta was killed Wednesday along with his deputy, Federal Preventive Police Commissioner Tomas Valencia, five other passengers and two crewmembers.

Officials also said that all evidence points to an accident, in that case caused by bad weather, though Aguilar added, "Of course, we have to wait for the results of the investigation."

As public safety secretary, Martin Huerta oversaw the federal police agency and was a key figure in Mexico's fight against drug gangs. He had led a campaign to tighten security in the prisons, where drug traffickers were found to be operating their cartels from behind bars.

The country's National Human Rights Commission announced that one of its officials, Jose Antonio Bernal, who also died in the crash, had received death threats from an imprisoned trafficking suspect.