Ex-AG Challenges Cardinal in Death Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Ex-AG Challenges Cardinal in Death By John Rice Associated Press Writer Wednesday, May 26, 1999; 5:54 p.m. EDT MEXICO CITY (AP) -- A once-polite dispute over a probe of a Roman Catholic cardinal's killing has exploded into an exchange of furious accusations between the cardinal's successor and a former attorney general proud of his reputation for honesty. Angered by the current cardinal's claim he covered up evidence, Jorge Carpizo is demanding that prosecutors strap him and the prelate to lie detectors. He also suggested the cardinal may be trying to exonerate drug traffickers implicated in the killing of Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo because they allegedly contribute to the church. Posadas was shot to death in a wild fusillade in the parking lot of Guadalajara's international airport on May 24, 1993, during Carpizo's term as federal attorney general, which ended in 1994. Carpizo and his successors suggested the cardinal probably was killed accidentally during a shootout between drug gangs. Church officials have repeatedly said the cardinal was probably the target. In a Guadalajara radio interview Monday, Posadas' successor, Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iniguez, accused Carpizo of creating ``this whole explanation that nobody has believed in order to cover up the criminals.'' He claimed Carpizo covered up evidence in the case -- apparently a videotape -- and suggested that ``big fish'' were behind the slaying. Carpizo, a former human rights prosecutor, exploded in anger at a news conference Tuesday. He also wrote a letter to current Attorney General Jorge Madrazo Cuellar, suggesting that a lie-detector machine could settle the dispute and challenging the clergyman to specify what evidence was hidden -- and to have it broadcast nationally. ``Not to call Archbishop Sandoval to testify would be to place him above the law,'' Carpizo said in the open letter published by local newspapers Wednesday. In an interview with the Televisa television network, Sandoval said, ``I am ready to testify if they call me.'' But the attorney general's office said it had not yet analyzed Carpizo's request. Jalisco state Gov. Alberto Cardenas suggested that all sides ``shut their mouths,'' according to the government's Notimex news agency. The spokesman for Mexico's Catholic bishop's conference, Bishop Onesimo Cepeda, told the Formato 21 radio station that accusations by both men got out of hand. He called Carpizo's suggestion of drug-money offerings ``a total absurdity'' and said the two should meet privately to resolve the dispute. In his letter to Madrazo, Carpizo said he had been slandered and insisted he never hid any evidence. On Monday, the slaying's sixth anniversary, the government released a new report, again concluding the shooting was probably an accident. Sandoval was a member of the commission that prepared the report, but he refused to endorse its conclusions. In response to a question, Sandoval also declined to rule out the possibility that Raul Salinas, a brother of former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, planned the killing because the cardinal knew about drug corruption. That possibility was raised by the daily El Universal Monday. Raul Salinas, serving a 50-year sentence for the 1994 murder of a political rival, has repeatedly insisted he has never had anyone killed. (c) Copyright 1999 The Associated Press ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcamer-05.28.99-11:30:52-19127