Mexican prosecutor: Marine hero’s family killed in revenge attack by drug lord’s allies

Mexico says cartel killed marine hero’s family

VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico — Family members of a fallen marine hailed as a drug-war hero were slain by a gang allied with a top drug lord in retaliation for the cartel leader’s death, a state official said Wednesday.

Four people who are believed to be informants and aides for the Zeta gang were detained in the deaths of the mother, two siblings and aunt of Melquisedet Angulo, Tabasco state Attorney General Rafael Gonzalez said.

Angulo was the only marine who died in a Dec. 16 raid that killed drug lord Arturo Beltran Leyva.

The Zetas, former military elite-turned-hit men, have allied with the Beltran Leyva cartel in recent years.

The detained suspects — three men and one woman — either served as lookouts for the Zetas or transported money to pay the gunmen, who are still at large, Gonzalez said.

“The motive was an agreement this group made as a result of the events of Dec. 16,” he told a news conference.

On Tuesday, a day after the navy honored Angulo as a national hero at his memorial service, gunmen burst into the family home in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco and shot to death four relatives. One sister survived but was seriously wounded.

President Felipe Calderon called the attack “a cowardly act” and vowed to press forward with his war on the cartels involving more than 45,000 Mexican troops.

Mexico’s drug gangs frequently employ networks of lookouts and informants to perform logistics. Police have also been found to be on cartel payrolls, and Gonzalez later told local news media that some officers may have allowed — or helped — the assailants escape after Tuesday’s attack.

Mexico’s drug cartels sometimes stage retaliatory hits on military or law enforcement after the arrests or killings of top traffickers. In Tabasco, they had previously staged two such attacks on police officers and their families.

Assailants tossed hand grenades at government offices in the northern state of Sonora late Tuesday. No one was injured, but state officials there said they are on alert for possible reprisals for Beltran Leyva’s death.

Meanwhile, Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission on Wednesday questioned the policy of releasing the names of soldiers and police who have died fighting drug cartels. The government commission suggested officials respect their right to privacy.

The cartel’s violent rage may have been further stoked this time by graphic photos published in local and international news media of Beltran Leyva’s bullet-riddled body. Leyva was killed in a shootout with marines last week in an apartment in Cuernavaca, south of Mexico City. Six of his bodyguards also died.

The photos showed Beltran Leyva with his pants pulled down to his knees and blood-soaked money laid over his corpse.

Four employees of the state medical examiner’s office are under investigation for manipulating a crime scene, according to the attorney general’s office in the central state of Morelos, where Beltran Leyva was killed.

The office said Wednesday that the four could be fired, banned from working for the government and fined for misconduct.

Beltran Leyva was among the most-wanted drug lords in Mexico and the United States, and was the biggest trafficker taken down by Calderon’s administration so far. U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officials blame his cartel for much of the bloodshed across Mexico.

The armed forces have led Calderon’s crackdown against organized crime. More than 15,000 people have been killed by drug violence since it began in late 2006.

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Associated Press Writer Mark Stevenson in Mexico City contributed to this report.