The senior Justice officials who took over lost the case.

Department of Justice officials would not discuss other cases under investigation.

"It's just not necessary" to use that kind of language, a top Justice official told a defense lawyer at the time.

But at the time, they said, it was rejected by Mexican justice officials.

A senior Mexican justice official would not comment on the meeting.

For sometime after November 1999, justice officials lost his case file.

The Justice official said that if local agents could not track someone down, his name would be dropped.

He makes them for criminal justice officials, the governor's aides and other state employees.

They were hanged this morning at a prison in the capital, justice officials said.

None of the cases resulted in a successful prosecution, the justice official said.