PRI Leaders Will Not Face Charges

MEXICO CITY —  Mexico’s attorney general said Thursday night that there is not enough evidence to charge three top ruling party officials with any crimes in connection with the September slaying of the party’s second-ranking official, Francisco Ruiz Massieu.

In November, former deputy chief prosecutor Mario Ruiz Massieu, the victim’s brother, had implicated the three--Humberto Benitez Trevino, Maria de los Angeles Moreno and Ignacio Pichardo--in a plot to cover up the assassination.

But the statement issued by the office of Atty. Gen. Antonio Lozano indicates that no action will be taken against the three because the allegations “lack substantive proof.”

Pichardo, who was president of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party when Ruiz Massieu was killed, is now serving in President Ernesto Zedillo’s Cabinet. Moreno was recently named to succeed Pichardo as party president.