KIDNAPPED CHIHUAHUA ATTORNEY IS FOUND DEAD

Eight Men Are Held in Killing of Mario Gonzalez, Brother of an
Ex-State Attorney

The kidnapped brother of a former state attorney general who was
forced to make a video accusing the official of cartel crimes has
been found slain, authorities announced Friday.

Eight suspects were arrested in the kidnap-homicide of Mario
Gonzalez, brother of Patricia Gonzalez, who until last month was the
top prosecutor in Chihuahua, Mexico's most violence-ridden state. The
suspects said the killing was ordered by a local police officer
working for the Sinaloa cartel.

Several of the suspects were paraded before television cameras Friday
morning wearing what appeared to be the same camouflage clothes they
had worn in a video in which they were seen forcing Mario Gonzalez at
gunpoint to "confess." The video was later posted on YouTube. Two
suspects wore police uniforms. Some had bruises on their faces, and
one had an eye swollen shut.

Facundo Rosas, federal police commissioner, said the men worked for
the powerful Sinaloa cartel, which is locked in mortal combat with
the Juarez cartel, which historically has dominated much of Chihuahua state.

Gonzalez's body was found in a shallow grave and bore signs of
torture, Rosas said at a news conference. He had been beaten
repeatedly, and his assailants used a garrote fashioned from rope and
a piece of wood to choke him to death, Rosas said.

Gonzalez, an attorney, was kidnapped from his office Oct. 21. The
video appeared a few days later. In it, he is surrounded by masked
men pointing weapons at his head. He accuses his sister of working on
behalf of the Juarez cartel, of accepting bribes and of ordering
several high-profile killings.

Patricia Gonzalez, in an interview with The Times last month, denied
the allegations, saying her brother had been coerced. She had
speculated that the kidnapping was the work of vengeful "drug cartels
and some state police or ex-police" who resisted her efforts to
reform the judiciary and law enforcement agencies.

"It hurts my soul that criminals use my brother to punish me," she
said at the time.

One of the detained suspects, Luis Miguel Ibarra, 22, said a cartel
henchman code-named the Vulture ordered Mario Gonzalez's kidnapping.
His death was ordered by Adrian Orozco, a police officer in Chihuahua
City, the state capital, who is on the payroll of the Sinaloa gang,
investigators said Ibarra told them.

Rosas said the kidnappers began beating Gonzalez shortly after they
abducted him but were careful to hit the soles of his feet and his
ankles to avoid having any injuries visible in the video. Gonzalez
was killed a day after the video was made.

Separately, federal police announced the arrest of a Colombian
national who they say served as liaison between Colombia's cocaine
producers and the Beltran Leyva cartel in Mexico. Harold Mauricio
Poveda, alias "the Rabbit," was wanted in the U.S. on
cocaine-trafficking charges, said Ramon Pequeno, head of the police
narcotics division.

Also Friday, another Mexican journalist was reported killed, this
time during a shootout in the northern border city of Matamoros. And
the mayor of Mexico's wealthiest suburb confirmed that his head
bodyguard had been shot to death the night before. Mayor Mauricio
Fernandez of San Pedro Garza Garcia in Nuevo Leon has courted
controversy in the past, once for advocating negotiations with
cartels and later for seeming to support vigilantes.

Meanwhile, at the University of Texas in El Paso, students and
faculty were mourning the shooting deaths in Ciudad Juarez of two
business administration students. Manuel Acosta Villalobos, 25, and
Eder Andres Diaz, 23, were killed earlier in the week, among the more
than 80 U.S. citizens killed in Chihuahua state, where Juarez is
located, this year, according to the U.S. State Department.

Acosta and Diaz lived in Juarez while attending school at the El Paso
campus, just across the border, school officials told the El Paso Times.