Salinas’ Brother Probably Knew His Killers, Police Say

MEXICO CITY —  The drama surrounding the slaying of former Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari’s youngest brother intensified Friday, as authorities said the dead man probably knew his killers.

Mexico state’s top prosecutor said the investigation was “advancing rapidly,” focusing on a “close nucleus” of people associated with 52-year-old businessman Enrique Salinas, who was found strangled Monday in a parked car in an upscale suburb of the capital.

“Evidently, there is a relationship between the victim” and the assailants, Alfonso Navarrete Prida, attorney general of Mexico state, said at a news conference.

He said several people could be involved.

“It could be family, it could be acquaintances, friends, business associates,” he said.

News of Salinas’ slaying has gripped the capital since his body was found slumped in a silver Volkswagen Passat, his face bruised and his head inside a plastic bag.

At the time of his death, officials in France, where Salinas had lived in the 1990s, were investigating whether he had anything to do with allegedly illicit financial transactions that helped his brother Raul Salinas hide money in European accounts.

So far authorities are downplaying any link to his jailed brother’s case. Instead, they speculate that Salinas may have been the victim of a botched attempt to extort money or information.

They believe that he was killed outside his car, then hurriedly dumped by assailants who apparently did not expect to have to deal with a corpse.

Navarrete said the killers left a sloppy trail of evidence uncharacteristic of a professional hit. Salinas’ body was abandoned on a residential street equipped with security cameras, providing police with video images of a sport utility vehicle leaving the scene.

Salinas’ cellphone was still in his pocket, giving them a list of his calls. Authorities also recovered hair and fingerprints at the scene.

“There wasn’t any premeditation,” Navarrete said. “It wasn’t sufficiently planned.”

But the case doesn’t add up for dubious residents of the capital, many of whom are going on television and talk radio to question the evidence and the handling of the investigation.

Some wonder why police were so quick to release the contents of a note they said was written by Salinas and found on his body. The note said Salinas and his family had been threatened and harassed and were in “grave danger,” but it gave no specifics regarding why or by whom.

The rumor mill is also churning over the family’s decision to quickly have Salinas’ body cremated and why authorities did nothing to prevent that while they were in the midst of a homicide investigation.

The slaying is the latest in a series of scandals and intrigues that have dogged the famous clan during the last decade.

Raul Salinas is serving a 27-year sentence for orchestrating the murder of an influential politician who also was his brother-in-law. Raul garnered millions of dollars during Carlos Salinas’ six-year presidency, which he stuffed into offshore bank accounts.

Many here blame the former president for an economic collapse just weeks after he left office in 1994. Millions of Mexicans were devastated financially.

Mexican political analyst Leo Zuckerman of the Center for Economic Research and Teaching in Mexico City said the events surrounding Enrique Salinas’ slaying provided enough grist for a “Godfather” novel.

He compared Mexicans’ fascination with the Salinas family to Americans’ interest in the Kennedys, with one major difference.

“There is no sympathy for the Salinas family,” he said. “They are abhorred in Mexico.”