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Rubén Zuno Arce, Guilty in Drug Killing, Dies at 82
Rubén Zuno Arce, a central defendant in the 1985 torture and killing of an American drug enforcement agent in Mexico, a crime that increased tension between Mexico and the United States in part because of Mr. Zuno’s ties to Mexican government officials, died on Tuesday in a federal prison in Coleman, Fla. He was 82.
The cause was metastatic lung cancer and cardiovascular disease, said Mike Hensley, director of operations for Florida’s District 5 Medical Examiner’s Office.
Mr. Zuno had connections high in the Mexican government and was the brother-in-law of Luis Echeverría Álvarez, who was president from 1970 to 1976. In 1992, he was convicted of kidnapping and conspiracy in the death of Enrique Camarena Salazar, a longtime agent for the United States Drug Enforcement Administration who had helped discover and destroy billions of dollars worth of drugs controlled by the so-called Guadalajara Cartel in the mid-1980s.
The drug gang eventually traced the drug seizures back to Mr. Camarena. On Feb. 7, 1985, they abducted him and his pilot, Alfredo Zavala Avelar, in Guadalajara, tortured and killed them, and left their bodies in a field in the neighboring state of Michoacán. The bodies were found about a month later. A forensic expert later testified that Mr. Camarena, who was known as Kiki, had died of blows to the face and head by a blunt object, most likely a pipe.
American prosecutors told jurors at Mr. Zuno’s original trial in 1990 that he had helped run a marijuana and cocaine ring working out of Guadalajara by using his political connections.
“It becomes clear that Zuno had a certain function,” one prosecutor told jurors. “He greased the wheels for protection from corrupt law enforcement.”
After a widespread and aggressive investigation of Mr. Camarena’s death by the United States, about three dozen people were indicted in the United States and Mexico. Many were extradited for trial in the United States.
Mr. Zuno was tried in 1990 with Dr. Humberto Álvarez Machaín, a gynecologist whom the United States accused of medicating Mr. Camarena to keep him alive while he was being tortured so that he could answer questions. Mr. Zuno had been extradited, but Dr. Álvarez was kidnapped from his Guadalajara office by Mexican bounty hunters hired by the United States and was brought to the United States, a maneuver that infuriated Mexican officials.
In June 1992, the United States Supreme Court upheld the arrest, further angering Mexico, which promptly suspended the work of American drug agents in Mexico and ordered its agents in the United States to return to Mexico.
Both men were convicted in federal court in 1990, but their convictions were thrown out. Two years later, after the court ruling, they were tried again. The case against Dr. Álvarez was thrown out, but Mr. Zuno was convicted and sentenced to two life terms.
Witnesses told of high Mexican officials being aware or even present when Mr. Camarena’s kidnapping was being planned and when he was tortured and killed, claims that Mexican leaders rejected.
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