(2 of 2)
In the early morning just before the assassination, Aguilar says he felt like a man "manipulated on strings by Mexico's circle of power." He claims that the Salinas cronies who hired him provided him with a 9-mm machine gun-style pistol, which he hid under a folded newspaper, less than half an hour before Ruiz Massieu emerged from a meeting. After watching Ruiz Massieu climb into the driver's seat of his car, Aguilar stepped up and fired a round through the window. But then, he says, the gun either jammed or had no more rounds left. Either way, he says, he concluded that the gun had been rigged to leave him defenseless--and that whoever was in the getaway car was set to kill him too. He started to run and was quickly engulfed by police.
Aguilar says that when he was tortured by police, he gave up two names but remained silent about Salinas. And, he insists, he would have stayed silent even now, except for the fact that he says he too became one of Raul Salinas' victims. In August 1997, Aguilar says, he received news in his cell that his common-law wife and toddler son had been kidnapped as a way of forcing him to proclaim Raul's innocence. (Raul Salinas' lawyers did not return TIME's calls.) Aguilar did tell a Mexico City daily that Raul had no part in the conspiracy. "But it wasn't the truth," he says. And the kidnapping infuriated him. "That was the last time I intend to be betrayed by Raul."
Aguilar's new account is important because although Salinas was convicted last week, many Mexican legal scholars are worried that the verdict--which relies heavily on circumstantial evidence--may melt on appeal. Aguilar's story, if it holds up, could bolster the conviction. But even with both Aguilar and Raul in jail, Mexican officials say Salinas-style corruption remains a problem--and Aguilar's old gang is still practicing its dangerous trade.