Columns Columns Allyn Hunt The strange and shameful trial of Ruben Zuno Arce, convicted in the torture and murder of a DEA agent
The strange and shameful trial of Ruben Zuno Arce, convicted in the torture and murder of a DEA agent
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- Published on Friday, 28 September 2012 13:34
- Written by Allyn Hunt
Last week a brief story appeared in the United States and Mexican media reporting the September 19 death of Ruben Zuno Arce, brother-in-law of former Mexican President Luis Echeverria Alvarez and son of a former JaIisco Institutional Revolutionary Party governor, Jose Guadalupe Zuno. Zuno Arce was 82 years old and died of lung cancer and cardiovascular disease at the U.S. federal prison in Coleman, Florida.
Zuno Arce was presidente municipal of the nearby municipality of Mascota. One Guadalajara newspaper reported, “The brother-in-law of President Luis Echeverria Alvarez (1970-1976) embedded his political power in the (Mascota) municipio located (in) the western mountains of Jalisco, where he exercised total control until his detention.”
Zuno Arce, according to members of the United States judicial system, became fatefully embroiled in the 1985 kidnapping, torture and death of Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique (Kiki) Camarena Salazar, and his pilot Alfredo Zavala Avelar, both headquartered in Guadalajara. Zuno Arce was eventually convicted for a series of felonies and received consecutive sentences that amounted to life in prison.