Word: deas
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When reports first emerged that Victor Cortez Jr., a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent, had been tortured by policemen in Guadalajara, any words of Mexican repentance were drowned out by shouts of resentment. Mexico City's most influential newspaper, Excelsior, ran a cartoon showing two skunks, one labeled "DEA," the other "drug traffickers." An editorial asserted that the very presence of American intelligence-gathering agents created a "stinking sewer." Both the governor and the attorney general of Jalisco state, where the detention had taken place, flatly denied all charges of torture. And the country's Defense Minister, General Juan Arevalo...
...officers suspected of "abusing authority and inflicting injuries" in the Cortez case. At the same time, though, Mexico sent a sharp note to Washington contending that Cortez had overstepped his authority. Angered by the charge, U.S. officials replied that Cortez had acted in accordance with well-known and accepted DEA practices. They bitterly pointed out that none of the eleven officers had yet been arrested. Above all, they found Mexico's continuing show of defensiveness offensive. Said one Administration official: "We're getting pretty sick and tired of the way the Mexicans are acting...
...mishandling of Cortez has already overshadowed all the gestures of goodwill exchanged by President Reagan and Mexican President Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado in Washington three weeks ago. It has also highlighted the dangers that DEA agents face in Mexico, where police officers often regard their undercover allies from the U.S. as meddlesome intruders. Washington, in turn, views many of its local colleagues as potential enemies who have been corrupted by the very criminals they are supposed to be battling. "It's ! gotten a lot worse down there now," says one U.S. law-enforcement official, "because the agents aren...
...been jailed on charges of extortion but was later cleared. Inside the trunk of the car was a semiautomatic rifle and an UZI submachine gun, both of which are illegal in Mexico. To make matters worse, Cortez had no identity papers on his person to prove his DEA status. The report conceded that contusions were found on Cortez's body three hours after his release but omitted any reference to the agent's claims that he had been tortured with electric shocks...
...disturbing case was by no means the first attack on U.S. narcotics officers in Guadalajara, Mexico's third largest city. In October 1984 gunfire peppered a DEA agent's car while it was parked in front of his Guadalajara home. Four months later another U.S. drug buster, Enrique Camarena Salazar, was abducted in the same city. His corpse was found the following month in a plastic bag. While dozens of police officers were dismissed or jailed in the wake of the murder, Washington claims many other suspects remain at large. U.S. officials say Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, a drug lord...