Release of US Agent's Killer Puts Mexican Leader in Tricky Position Tracy Wilkinson - The Los Angeles Times
go to original August 12, 2013

Police officers head to the Puente Grande state prison, background, in Zapotlanejo, where the Mexican drug cartel boss who killed a U.S. narcotics agent in 1985 was freed on a technicality last week. (Hector Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images)

MEXICO CITY — It might have been an obscure regional court that released notorious drug kingpin Rafael Caro Quintero from prison, but it will be the 8-month-old government of President Enrique Peña Nieto that will have to handle the furious fallout.

Caro Quintero, one of Mexico's major drug cartel leaders, was freed Friday after serving 28 years for the kidnapping, torture and murder of a U.S. narcotics agent, Enrique "Kiki" Camarena, in 1985. The court vacated his conviction and lifted what remained of a 40-year sentence, based on a technicality.

The U.S. government reacted angrily. The Drug Enforcement Administration, for whom Camarena worked, said it was "deeply troubled" that the "mastermind" of his murder had been freed. And the U.S. Justice Department suggested it would pursue efforts to extradite Caro Quintero to the U.S. to face prosecution.

... The release of a major drug trafficker who killed an American official is a tricky case for Peña Nieto and will pose a new challenge to his efforts to reform the PRI's image.

Read the rest at The Los Angeles Times

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