MEXICO CITY (CNS): The Mexican Attorney-General’s office has announced it secretly re-opened its investigation into the 1993 murder of Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo in June 2001.
The case had been shelved in July 2000 after repeated investigations concluded that the cardinal was killed by accident in the parking lot of the airport in the western city of Guadalajara during a gun battle between rival drug gangs.
But Deputy Attorney-General Maria de la Luz Lima Malvido told a press conference on May 24, the ninth anniversary of the murder, that her office re-opened the investigation after a review of the 58-volume file revealed irregularities. These included the removal of more than 1000 pages, including a statement by the papal nuncio at the time of the murder, Archbishop Girolamo Prigione.
Ms Lima said the investigation’s re-opening was kept secret “to avoid the manipulation of the facts, the politicisation of the case, or the elimination of evidence that could be important in the investigation”.
