Pressure to leave murder of Cardinal Posadas unresolved?

Mexico City, Mexico, Jan 30, 2007 / 09:40 am

The weekly newspaper of the Archdiocese of Mexico, “Desde la Fe,” reported this week that there is reason to believe that top officials of the government of former president Carlos Salinas are pressuring authorities “to close the investigation” into the murder of Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo.

The story follows statements made recently by forensic doctor Mario Rivas Souza, who said he was ordered not to perform an autopsy by then-President Salinas.

“There is reason to believe that top officials of the Salinas administration continue to successfully pressure authorities to close the investigation so that the sacrilegious crime against Cardinal Posadas Ocampo might remain buried in the shameful Mexican-style impunity,” the newspaper article stated.

It also noted the existence of “important witnesses” who show that that the cardinal was “under surveillance in the days leading up to the murder, that the telephones in his house were bugged and that the signal was being sent to the [Mexican government].”

Therefore, the paper stated, it is “totally shameful that until now no one has been convicted of committing or organizing this murder, despite that fact that it happened over 13 years ago.”

The article also reaffirmed the Church’s interest in solving the case.  “Desde la Fe” noted that on October 16, 2006, a commission headed by the current Archbishop of Guadalajara, Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iñiguez, provided an update on the case to Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

Advances in the investigation reveal that the murder “was a crime of the State” and that “the only thing that is clear” is the pressure against “the Attorneys General of the Republic who were aware of the matter, to make them put it off, investigate the homicide in a superficial manner, and if possible, to close the case.”