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Mexico security minister missing in chopper flight

Posted on: Wednesday, 21 September 2005, 18:32 CDT

By Eduardo Quiros

HUIXQUILUCAN, Mexico (Reuters) - A key figure in Mexican President Vicente Fox's war on drug cartels was missing on Wednesday after his helicopter went down in fog.

Troops searched a wooded hill near Mexico City for the Bell 412 helicopter carrying Public Security Minister Ramon Martin Huerta and eight others. It lost contact with the ground 10 minutes after taking off from a military base.

"All we know is that contact was lost. We don't know whether it was an emergency landing or a crash," government spokesman Ruben Aguilar told reporters.

One local radio station, citing police sources, said the helicopter made an emergency landing and that the passengers were unharmed. But that report could not be confirmed more than five hours after the aircraft disappeared.

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

More than 1,000 people have been killed, including 15 police officers, as drugs gangs fight over lucrative smuggling routes to the United States.

Tomas Valencia, the head of the Federal Preventive Police, one of Mexico's federal police forces, was also in the helicopter. The officials were headed for a ceremony at the La Palma prison, home to several drug capos.

An inspector from the National Human Rights Commission, a state-run watchdog, was believed to be among those missing. He had received at least three death threats from Osiel Cardenas, the jailed head of the infamous Gulf Cartel drug gang.

"(The threats) intensified or were repeated in recent days," a commission spokesman told Reuters.

The office of the inspector, Jose Antonio Bernal, had rejected a complaint by Cardenas of rights abuses, the spokesman said.

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

Source: REUTERS

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