. Excerpt from English language section of non-partisan El Universal.
Here'a the view from the Houston Chronicle, which is certainly anything but on the side of the liberal Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. (Excerpt, follow link for full story.)
Tape revives Mexican conspiracy theory
Recording backs losing presidential candidate's claim of plot against him
By DUDLEY ALTHAUS and MARION LLOYD
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
MEXICO CITY -- Claims by Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador that a powerful cabal of politicians and the mega-wealthy have conspired to rob him of this summer's presidential election have long been dismissed by his critics as paranoia.
But the interrogation of a real estate developer, taped two years ago in Cuba and broadcast here Friday on a radio program, might well confirm the notion that just because a man could be paranoid doesn't mean people aren't out to get him.
On the tape, jailed businessman Carlos Ahumada alleges that several Mexican Cabinet ministers, a powerful senator from President Vicente Fox's party and former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari engineered the February 2004 release of other videotapes showing the developer bribing senior aides to Lopez Obrador.
"It's the fight for 2006, that's what they won," Carlos Ahumada, a native of Argentina who had been active in Mexico City construction, says on the tape. "I mean, they practically pulled Andres Manuel out of the presidential race."
Most of the men accused of planning the bribery scandal denied Friday that there was any such conspiracy.
The 2004 bribery scandal, combined with a separate criminal prosecution that would have disqualified Lopez Obrador from running, nearly derailed his quest for the presidency.
The Fox administration shelved the federal prosecution, involving the illegal building of a road in Mexico City while Lopez Obrador was mayor, after hundreds of thousands of people marched in protest against it...
..."This confirms what Andres has been saying all along," said Rafael Hernandez Nava, a city legislator for Lopez Obrador's party, at a sit-in in downtown Mexico City. "It was a plot conjured up by (Diego) Fernandez de Cevallos (a National Action senator), by Salinas and Fox."
"It's a plot by the same rich people in this country who have always opposed Andres."
The 2004 bribery videotapes show Lopez Obrador allies Rene Bejarano and Carlos Imaz taking large amounts of cash from Ahumada, presumably in return for favors on his development projects in the Mexican capital. A separate tape shows Mexico City's finance chief gambling large sums of money at a Las Vegas casino...
Ahumada tells interrogators that his lawyer, Juan Collado, worked in tandem with Fernandez de Cevallos in reviewing the bribery tapes and plotting how to make them public. He suggests that [former and generally not liked President Carlos] Salinas, whose family Collado has also represented in legal matters, was involved.
Asked for $30 million
He had originally asked for $30 million in financing for his businesses in exchange for the tapes, Ahumada said in the interrogation. But he settled for what he termed "official protection" for himself and his family and the chance to win government contracts in the future.
"Its difficult for me to believe that the president didn't know, in a matter of this magnitude," Ahumada says of Fox. "Do you think the government secretary and the attorney general knew, and not the president?"
Fernandez de Cevallos, a prominent lawyer who was his party's presidential candidate in 1994, denied any wrongdoing. He said he advised Ahumado as a lawyer -- pro bono -- on what to do with the tapes and how to defend himself in problems with the city government.
He said he had no contact with Salinas about the tapes.
"He never gave me a single video," Fernandez told W Radio, the network that broke the story. Fernandez said he had all his dealings with Ahumada strictly documented.
Santiago Creel, interior minister at the time the bribery scandal broke, denied knowing or dealing with Ahumada in a written statement Friday.
"Neither did I know of the existence of the videos to which he refers before they were disseminated by the mass media," Creel said in a statement.
Saying he wouldn't lend himself to the "game of those who try to obtain political advantage through slander or manipulation," Creel said he'd make no further comment on the matter...