Skull Reignites Mexican Scandal Ex-President’s Brother Is Target Of Political Conspiracy Probe

Police searching a ranch of the former president’s brother for the body of an alleged co-conspirator in a political murder said Wednesday that they had found a human skull and bones.

A forensic expert in a white laboratory smock displayed the skull on a plastic tray for photographers, but officials at the attorney general’s office cautioned that the remains had not been identified.

The discovery could shed new light on the case against Raul Salinas de Gortari, brother of former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, who is in jail on charges of plotting to kill a political rival.

Prosecutors say Raul Salinas conspired with Manuel Munoz Rocha to murder a political rival, Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, a top official in the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party.

Munoz Rocha, a federal congressman, disappeared after the Sept. 28, 1994, slaying of Ruiz Massieu. Police have long feared Munoz Rocha is dead.

Raul Salinas, who was jailed in February 1995 and whose trial has proceeded slowly, says he is innocent.

The search of his ranch in the Mexico City district of Cuajimalpa began late Tuesday after police obtained a warrant to search for Munoz Rocha’s remains.

Wednesday afternoon, police let reporters and photographers inside the chain-link gates of the estate and showed them a 12-foot hole they had dug.

Pablo Chapa Bezanilla, the special prosecutor in charge of the Ruiz Massieu case, squatted on his haunches behind a forensic expert wearing plastic gloves, who displayed the skull.

Plainly human, the skull was covered in brown mud.

More than a dozen federal police in black bulletproof vests with automatic weapons guarded the compound. A yellow backhoe was visible to the side of a large house, with a tennis court, nestled in a rugged hillside.

The Television Azteca network reported Wednesday that another Salinas property on Paseo de la Reforma, a major boulevard in the capital, may soon be searched.

Raul Salinas’ younger brother left Mexico in self-imposed exile after his term as president ended in December 1994.