U.S. Gang Members Go Free In Mexican Cardinal's Slaying -- Police Say They Were In Shootout

SAN DIEGO - Several U.S. gang members charged in the mysterious slaying of the Roman Catholic cardinal of Guadalajara have been released in Mexico and are back in San Diego, much to the consternation of investigators who hunted them down.

A federal appellate court in Guadalajara has upheld judicial orders setting them free, authorities said.

Surprised U.S. and Mexican prosecutors confirmed that three suspects have been released, including one arrested north of the border for drug dealing. Officials fear judges will grant similar orders for five suspects who remain in Mexican jail.

The gang members were granted judicial orders known as "amparos," similar to a "writ of habeas corpus" in the U.S. legal system, based on flaws in evidence or police conduct. In this case, defense attorneys claimed police tortured suspects. But other details remain unknown.

Given the vast network of corruption already unveiled in the case, the revelation adds to suspicions surrounding the murder of Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo, one of seven people killed during a gunfight at the Guadalajara airport in 1993.

Mexican prosecutors called it a case of mistaken identity, insisting that gunmen working for Tijuana drug lords shot the cardinal because he drove into the middle of an ambush on a rival kingpin.

The gunmen allegedly included a dozen members of a San Diego street gang, who were recruited as bodyguards and assassins in a cross-border alliance with the Arellano drug mafia of Tijuana.

Contradictions in the government's version and the failure to catch the alleged masterminds caused angry church leaders, journalists and the Mexican public to assert that the cardinal was killed intentionally in a conflict involving politically connected drug lords and politicians with drug ties. The forces of "narco-politics" also are blamed for several assassinations last year in Mexico and recent high-level scandals.

After the shootout, the Arellano brothers of Tijuana fled on a commercial plane held for them at the airport and used police and political protection to elude an international manhunt. In a sweeping corruption purge, more than 70 police commanders and prosecutors were arrested or fired for alleged links to gangsters.

Nonetheless, the three Arellano brothers continue to run their drug-smuggling empire in Baja, according to U.S. agents.

Jorge Garcia Villalobos, a vice consul in the Los Angeles attache's office, confirmed the releases of gang members Antonio Pena Huerta, known as Lalo, and Jesus Zamora Salas, a k a Cougar. On Nov. 3, drug agents in Chula Vista, a suburb of San Diego, arrested Pena, 28, for allegedly selling a half-kilo of heroin. He is in San Diego County jail awaiting trial.

Mexican authorities ordered the release of Zamora, 22, last Friday, and his whereabouts are not clear, according to Garcia and U.S. officials.

The third gang member who was released is Adolfo Marin Cuevas, 28, or Nightowl, according to U.S. and Mexican officials.