MEDIA/CRIME-MEXICO: From Alleged Assassin to TV Star in High Demand

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Feb 1 2001 (IPS) - Mario Bezares, a former sidekick on Mexican television comedies, has turned into a star in his own right since a judge removed charges of abetting the assassination of the popular TV host Paco Stanley, Bezares’ former boss, allowing his release after 17 months in prison.

Shortly after leaving his jail cell on Jan 25, TV Azteca, where Stanley had worked, offered its full support to Bezares, but the Mexico City Prosecutor’s Office, which had accused Bezares of the crime, announced it would continue efforts to prove his guilt.

While he fights the case in the appeals court, Bezares will host a prime time variety show with his wife, Brenda, act in a theatre production and release a book and a music album – all of which he authored with help from the media giant TV Azteca.

“Mayito (as his friends and fans call him) is a member of this house and has the unconditional support of the network,” said Martín Luna, general director of TV Azteca Studios.

Bezares made headlines when he was arrested for charges of laying the groundwork so that Stanley, who he accompanied as co- host on a comedy show, would be shot to death in June 1999 when he left a restaurant in a southern district of Mexico City.

Judge Rafael Santa Ana clarified that Bezares was not found innocent of the charges, but ruled he should be released because the evidence presented against him was not conclusive.

The prosecutors maintain that the now famous TV host, who Stanley used to make fun of on camera, coordinated the crime with drug dealers who Stanley owed money and favours.

Stanley was murdered after leaving a restaurant where he had eaten breakfast and used cocaine with Bezares, according to the results of medical exams.

The investigation suggests that the TV host was, in addition to a cocaine user, a distributor of the drug in Mexico City’s artistic and media circles.

But Bezares, who reportedly spent a long while in the restaurant’s restroom while Stanley was being murdered, claims that he does not use cocaine, nor does he have ties with drug traffickers.

The public prosecutors affirm that under questioning Bezares contradicted himself on numerous points and was unable to explain where he was on certain dates prior to the assassination.

Based on the evidence and testimonies gathered immediately after the crime, the judges had ruled that the accused should be imprisoned while the investigations and the case proceeded.

Bezares’ release, along with five others who had been implicated in the crime, “is a judicial ruling intended to satisfy the demands of the most ferocious and aggressive campaign in memory, mounted by TV Azteca,” stated Samuel del Villar, a former public prosecutor for the Mexican capital.

The president of TV Azteca, Ricardo Salinas, responded that “this entire case was mounted by the government” of the capital, which is in the hands of the centre-left Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD).

The Prosecutor General’s accusations against Bezares and other former colleagues of Stanley, all employees of TV Azteca, were completely denied by the company, which went so far as to call on its viewers to mount a public protest against the accusers.

When the crime was reported, security personnel from TV Azteca – which has maintained an extensive anti-drug campaign over the last two years – attempted to remove evidence and asked investigators not to reveal that Stanley was a cocaine addict, denounced Del Villar.

TV Azteca’s appeal for collaboration in order to solve the crime always ran into resistance, said the former public prosecutor, who left his position in December after Rosario Robles handed over the reins of the city government to Manuel López, both of the PRD.

Del Villar had to turn to the courts in order to force the TV Azteca executives to make a statement.

Now that the accused are free – due to lack of evidence – the TV network, Mexico’s second largest after Televisa, wants all of them, but especially Bezares, to appear on its programmes.

Surveys conducted by several print media indicate that 60 percent of the capital’s residents polled want Bezares to serve as the principal host of a comedy programme.

The Mexico City Prosecutor’s Office reported that it would appeal the release of Bezares because of the great amount of evidence that remains against him in a crime that has yet to be resolved.