Fox: Mexican minister dies in copter crash
(AP)
Updated: 2005-09-22 11:42

A helicopter carrying a Cabinet minister who plays a top role in Mexico's anti-drug fight crashed in cloud-shrouded mountains outside Mexico City on Wednesday, killing him and all eight others on board.

The burned wreckage of the Bell helicopter was found in a mountainous, wooded area about 20 miles outside Mexico City several hours after it was reported missing.

Mexico State police coordinate a search effort for a missing helicopter in the hills on the outskirts of Toluca, Mexico on Wednesday Sept. 21, 2005. [AP]

The aircraft was carrying Public Safety Secretary Ramon Martin Huerta — a trusted ally of President Vicente Fox whose ministry heads the federal police force — Federal Preventive Police Chief Tomas Valencia, five other passengers and a crew of two.

It had taken off from a military base in Mexico City and was headed to a ceremony at the maximum-security La Palma prison, 35 miles west of Mexico City, when it was crashed in mountains surrounded by dense clouds.

"They all died in the line of duty," Fox said in a televised address, his voice cracking with emotion. "They are heroes ... I have lost not just a co-worker, but a close friend, Ramon."

Fox offered no explanation of why the helicopter crashed. But Mario Martinez, a pilot who was following in another helicopter, told local media that Huerta's craft had disappeared into a dense bank of clouds and was lost to view.

Mexican President Vicente Fox, pauses during a press conference at the official residence Los Pinos,Wednesday Sept. 21, 2005, in Mexico City. [AP]

Mexican media had speculated as to whether the helicopter's disappearance was related to Mexico's powerful drug trafficking groups.

"We are probably looking at an accident," Interior Secretary Carlos Abascal told reporters before the helicopters wreckage was discovered.

The flight was on its way to a swearing-in ceremony for prison guards, the culmination of an effort to purge corrupt officials from a prison holding notorious Mexican drug gang leaders.

The prison was cordoned off earlier this year by federal troops after investigators found evidence that reputed drug lords Osiel Cardenas and Benjamin Arellano Felix had joined forces and were operating their networks from behind bars.

In addition to Huerta, the Bell helicopter carried a pilot, co-pilot, Valencia, officials from the Public Safety Department and one official from the country's National Human Rights Commission.

Fox created the Public Safety Department after taking office in 2000, combining federal police forces overseeing prisons, highways and borders — including the Federal Preventative Police, a force that includes soldiers assigned to police work like crowd and riot control.

Mexican Public Safety Secretary Ramon Martin Huerta, who heads Mexico's federal police, speaks during a news conference in Mexico City in this Jan. 10, 2005 file photo. [AP/file]

His role in charge of police overseeing Mexico's borders gave him a key role in fighting the nation's powerful drug trafficking gangs.

A trusted Fox ally, Huerta was appointed to lead the agency in August 2004 after the previous secretary, Alejandro Gertz Manero, resigned to return to private life.

Valencia had been promoted to his police chief post, answering to Huerta, in January after his predecessor was fired for his role in the botched response to an attack by a mob in Mexico City that left two federal agents dead.

Huerta was Fox's campaign director when Fox ran for governor of the central Mexican state of Guanajuato, and served as interior secretary after Fox's election in 1995. When Fox became president, Huerta took over as interim governor of Guanajuato.

Huerta, who has a degree in business administration, worked as a college professor and was an activist in Fox's conservative National Action Party before he launched his government career.

"For me, it is of great concern when any person has been in an accident, or is injured, or killed, but in this case in particular, the friendship that bonds me with Ramon for a long time makes this an extra-personal worry," said Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez, who spoke with reporters during an event with a visiting Russian official.

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