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Mexico security minister killed in helicopter crash

Posted on: Wednesday, 21 September 2005, 20:20 CDT

By Eduardo Quiros

HUIXQUILUCAN, Mexico (Reuters) - Mexico's public security minister, a key figure in the war against drug cartels, was killed along with eight others on Wednesday when his helicopter went down in mountains near the capital.

Rescue workers found the burned wreckage of Ramon Martin Huerta's aircraft six hours after contact was lost early into a flight from the capital to a high security prison.

In a televised address, President Vicente Fox vowed to push on with his fight against violent gangs running drugs into the United States.

"Today, more than ever, I repeat the commitment of my government and of the nation to build a safe Mexico, of justice, peace and freedom," he said.

Fox said the Bell 412 helicopter had crashed in a "terrible accident" but gave no reason for the crash. Martin Huerta was one of the president's closest aides and an old friend.

The chopper was flying to the La Palma maximum-security penitentiary that holds several of Mexico's most feared drug capos. He was headed to the prison for a minor ceremony.

Tomas Valencia, the head of the Federal Preventive Police, one of Mexico's federal police forces, was among the dead.

Martin Huerta, a former governor of the central state of Guanajuato, was a top figure in a battle launched this year on drug-related crime on the U.S. border and western Mexico, where violence has spiraled.

More than 1,000 people have been killed this year as drug gangs fight over lucrative smuggling routes to the United States.

DEATH THREATS

Jose Antonio Bernal, an inspector from the National Human Rights Commission, a state-run watchdog, was also killed in the helicopter crash.

Bernal's office had rejected a complaint of rights abuses by Osiel Cardenas, the jailed head of the infamous Gulf Cartel drug gang, a commission spokesman told Reuters.

He had received at least three death threats from Osiel, the spokesman said.

"They intensified or were repeated in recent days," the spokesman said.

More than 100 infantry troops and paratroopers had searched a wooded hill in banks of cloud for the wreckage.

(Additional reporting by Tim Gaynor, Alistair Bell and Lorraine Orlandi)

Source: REUTERS

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