Ex-Mexican Officer Convicted in U.S. Agent’s Torture Death
Former Mexican police officer Raul Lopez Alvarez was convicted in Los Angeles this morning of helping plot and carry out the 1985 torture-murders of U.S. narcotics agent Enrique Camarena and his pilot in Mexico.
Lopez, 28, a former state judicial police officer in Jalisco, was convicted of six felony counts in connection with the February, 1985, abductions of Camarena and Alfredo Zavala Avelar in Guadalajara and their tortures and killings.
Federal court jurors who heard the eight-week trial deliberated only one day before convicting Lopez of two counts of violent acts in aiding racketeering and one count each of kidnaping, murdering a federal agent and conspiring to kidnap a federal agent.
He also was convicted of one count of being an accessory after the fact by helping the purported mastermind of the killings, drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, flee to Costa Rica afterward.
Resume Deliberations
Jurors resumed deliberations on two other defendants, convicted cocaine dealer Jesus Felix Gutierrez and admitted marijuana trafficker Rene Verdugo Urquidez. Felix, 38, is accused of helping Caro Quintero flee Mexico and Verdugo, 36, is accused of participating directly in the murders.
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