Jury Hears Tape of Drug Agent’s Torture

Tape recordings of the torture and interrogation of slain U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena were played to a federal jury in Los Angeles on Thursday, and two investigators identified the icy-calm voice of Camarena’s inquisitor as that of a former Mexican police commander.

Camarena’s groans and pleas for medical attention can be heard throughout the two-hour tape in the face of questioning about his knowledge of Mexican drug trafficking.

“With the beating you have given me, do you think I am going to lie to you?” Camarena asks at one point, protesting that he has no more information helpful to the traffickers and pleading with them not to harm his family.

“You continue behaving well, and I will too,” says his questioner, his voice betraying no emotion throughout the inquiry, which was conducted in Spanish.

Federal officials believe Camarena was killed shortly after the torture session, which left his skull shattered “like an eggshell,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Jimmy Gurule said. The bodies of the drug agent and his pilot were found about a month later, in March of 1985, on a ranch near Guadalajara.

Two Drug Enforcement Administration agents identified the voice of Camarena’s interrogator as that of Sergio Espino-Verdin, 35, a former Mexican police commander who is now jailed in Mexico on charges stemming from the murder.

The tape, a translation of which was projected for jurors on an overhead screen, was played on the fifth day of trial for the three of the nine men indicted in the case who are in U.S. custody.