VIC: Cabal vulnerable to Mexican blame, academic tells court

AAP General News (Australia)
08-30-1999
VIC: Cabal vulnerable to Mexican blame, academic tells court

MELBOURNE, Aug 30 AAP - Fugitive Mexican banker Carlos Cabal was a known adversary of the
Mexican regime and had been highly vulnerable to being blamed for a mid-1990s banking crisis,
Melbourne Magistrates Court was told today.

The evidence, called by Cabal in his fight against extradition over hundreds of millions of
dollars of alleged banking fraud, came from US academic Professor Riordan Roett, of Johns
Hopkins University in Washington DC.

"Mr Cabal was known, and commented on in the press in Mexico, as an adversary of the
existing political order (in Mexico)," Prof Roett told the court.

But he said Cabal's success as a businessman in the early 1990s and his financial backing
of presidential candidate Luis Colosio meant he briefly "gatecrashed" into the establishment
elite.

"For a brief, shining moment Mr Cabal found a place at the table because he was useful in
supporting Colosio," Prof Roett said.

But the 1994 assassination of Colosio spelt the end of that, compounded by Cabal's refusal
to make similar donations to the new candidate, Ernesto Zedillo, now Mexico's president, he
said.

Prof Roett said Cabal did not have the education and background of ruling establishment
figures and, with the death of Colosio, he became "highly vulnerable" to political attack.

Prof Roett told the court the ruling elite believed "it was important to find someone to
blame for the banking crisis" in the mid-1990s that caused a big devaluation in Mexico's
currency and mass unemployment.

"Many people came to believe that (finding a scapegoat in a person such as Cabal) was the
tactic of the government," Prof Roett said.

Today's hearing went into closed session when Cabal's junior barrister Debbie Mortimer
asked Prof Roett whether he knew of any people who had been too afraid to give evidence at the
hearing.

Lawyers for Mexico objected to the question but Magistrate Lisa Hannan ruled she would take
the evidence provided the names of the people were provided to the court.

Ms Mortimer then successfully applied for the court to go into closed session.

Prof Roett had earlier said he was not afraid to give evidence as he had a reputation for
saying what he thought, and was not a Mexican academic.

"This is an extremely important issue and while I am not a martyr for the cause, this is an
issue that needs to be addressed."

In earlier evidence, Prof Roett told of torture, disappearances and a lack of rule of law
in the Mexican system.

"The last thing you want to do in Mexico is go to the police," Prof Roett said, adding
groups like Amnesty International regularly documented torture and disappearances carried out
by police.

Cabal and brother-in-law Marco Pasini are fighting extradition on the grounds they are
being politically persecuted by Mexican authorities, who are corrupt and with no rule of law.

The hearing continues tomorrow.

AAP gf/er

KEYWORD: CABAL NIGHTLEAD

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